The Road To Sabbatarianism - Part III

Part 3 of 3, where we review some of the chief things that lead a person into Sabbatarianism.

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Today we conclude talking about what, in my experience, are the top things which I've seen over the years that lead a person into Sabbatarianism.

In the previous posts, we saw the road to Sabbatarianism includes:

• Insufficient information,
• Misunderstanding who Jesus is,
• Misunderstanding the two Covenants,
• Misunderstanding the singular nature of the body of laws,
• Not Properly Understanding To Whom The Bible Was Written, and
• Not Properly Understanding the Sabbath itself.

Today's post is going to require everything we've reviewed up to this point. That's why I've saved it for last. (See if you can spot where the points above fit into the scenario below.) Today, we will see two critical errors in understanding, and then we'll see what to do about it.

Please understand that this is a much bigger topic than I can do justice to here. This is merely a surface overview, not a manifesto. I am only touching on things relevant to the topic at hand, and my hope is you will take it from here on your own. I will put some resources at the end to help you further. First, let's see how far you can make it through this post before walking away.

Thinking Laws Define Sin and Righteousness

Sabbatarianism is a symptom of a fundamental misunderstanding about sin and righteousness. 

The base assumption is that law - Old Covenant laws, Ten Commandments especially - defines sin itself, and therefore righteousness. It does not.
And therefore sin is breaking those laws, and righteousness is "keeping" those laws. (Partially keeping, that is.) It is not.
Now that I've lost most of my audience....
Refer back to our very first point in this series. In that post, I said the claim "the Sabbath is necessary for righteousness" is based on a false premise about the law. Let's see why.

Sin Without Law

The first critical error is thinking sin needs a law to exist. This is one side of the coin.

We all know there is such a thing as sin. The legalist mindset equates sin with law-breaking. Sin apart from law doesn't compute. They conclude the Old Covenant law is the only law, and so they imagine the Old law is everywhere - for Cain and Abel, for Gentiles in the New Covenant, and even for the angels. This definition causes other things to make no sense, like "sin nature", the weakness we all have to sin. (If a law isn't written, are we weak to it, or is there more to sin than written laws?) This can be taken to an extreme. "A Christ without law is a false Christ," I've heard it said. As if to say Christ must perpetually be subject to the law, even after His death. Which, of course, is contrary to the law.

If law defines sin, then there cannot be sin without law. Yet, the Bible tells us sin does not need a written law to exist.

(ROM. 2: 12a) For as many as have sinned without law...
(ROM. 5: 13) For until the law sin was in the world...
(GAL. 3: 17a) And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later...
(GAL. 3: 19) What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions...

Therefore, the claim must be false.

And before the KJV fans get angry with me, no, I am not ignoring I John 3: 4. (For more, see "Without the Law There Is No Sin".) I want to clarify that I am talking more about sin itself in the larger sense. If there is a Covenant which applies to you and a law is in that Covenant, then yes, breaking that law is a sin (the Old Covenant does not apply to you). I am not saying rules have no part to play at all. But sin in and of itself does not require a law to exist.

Righteousness Without Law

The second critical error is assuming righteousness needs a law to exist. This is the other side of the coin.

Once we equate sin with law-breaking, it seems natural to equate righteousness to law-keeping. What else could it be? Yet, the Bible tells us righteousness does not require a law to keep.

(ROM. 2: 14-15) 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness...
(ROM. 3: 21) But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
(GAL. 2: 21) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.
(GAL. 3: 21) For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.

God is righteous, but not because of keeping laws.

Neither sin nor righteousness require a law. If not by law, then what and how are these things?

Sin

Here is a glimpse into the Sabbatarian thinking:
Murder is wrong? Yes. Adultery is wrong? Yes. Theft is wrong? Yes. Idolatry is wrong? Yes. Then, this means the Ten Commandments are still valid, and therefore Sabbath-breaking is wrong, too. False!

How??

Murder, adultery, idolatry, and etc are sins, it's true, but not because of the Old Covenant law. There is a greater principle at work, which has always been and always will be.

Jesus said the two greatest commandments were to love (MAT. 22: 34-40). Everything else hangs on these (even the Sabbath). Everything in the Old Covenant law is summed up in these two. "Hangs on" indicates dependence; because of; lower than. But above these two is love itself. And God is love (I JON. 4: 7-8). It is the nature of God which is highest. So, any violation of love is a violation of His nature. And therefore, at its very core, sin is a violation of God. David understood this about sin (PSA. 51: 4).

And that extends to us, His images. When we violate (or bless) each other, we violate (or bless) Him (MAT. 25: 40). When Saul persecuted the church, what did Jesus say (ACT. 9: 3-6)?

Sin is not just a violation of God's loving nature, but any aspect of God. His reason, justice, truth, etc. In the Old Covenant period, we see this expressed in laws, laws, laws. Like a nanny guiding Israel (GAL. 3: 23-25). But if laws, laws, laws were all we needed, Jesus never would have arrived in the first place. Now, Jesus has come and that Covenant has gone. Replaced by the very One who built it. In the New Covenant period, things have matured quite a bit. So, sin and righteousness are much more than just lists of laws. Sin and righteousness are distilled to their essence. The law described many good things. Those things do continue, but not because of the law. They continue because of God Himself. This is not a distinction without a difference.

Righteousness

When I was an Armstrongist, we would often say, "Sin is missing the mark." That is a good way to understand it! But what mark? Our answer was the law, of course (the ones we picked). Ironically, that answer misses the mark. If law-keeping were the answer, then the Pharisees would be kings! Yet, Jesus called them lawless (MAT. 23: 28). (You can see "lawless" does not mean "without law".) But if not law-keeping, then what is the standard? Isn't it obvious? If sin is violating God, then righteousness is...

(MAT. 5: 48) Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
(I JON. 3: 3) And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
(I PET. 1: 15) but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct

...mirroring Him. God Himself is the target and the standard, and God's holy, righteous perfection is expected of us. Anything less is sin.

Still think you're basically a "good person"?

Wait, what?! I can handle not murdering, but this is too much for me! Woe is me! How do we, mere sinners, ever achieve such a lofty thing??
We cannot. It's impossible.
The law was intended to help Israel realize this. Poorly keeping a handful of laws was never the solution. The law is good, but law-keeping fails because it relies on us. We are the issue.

So, I am offering you impossibility?? No.
But I just said it was impossible! Yes.  ...for us.

Look. Our own righteousness is not what God wants. It's filthy. It's incomplete. It's sporadic. It's imperfect. It's barely better than sin. (ISA. 64: 6; ROM. 3: 10.) The law is great for showing us this wretched condition of ours (and condemning us for it), but it does little at all for fixing it. Remember, it was the people who were the most fanatic about the law that killed the very Law Giver.
Begrudgingly - or worse, self-righteously - doing our law-keeping rituals and thinking it earns something from God is so far from the mark I cannot find a good word for it. Sitting idle for 1/7th of your life certainly is not going to make you more like God. Using the law as a weapon to beat others with, like Satan, when we are supposed to understand our own guilt and therefore act as attorneys for the defense, is among the worst things we can do.

Promising God that this time you're going to try even harder is not the solution. (You know you do it.) The solution to our weakness is His strength. What God wants is His own perfect righteousness within us. That is what righteousness is. His righteousness. Remember MAT. 5: 48.
Not to try harder, but to surrender.

Faith

How can anyone achieve this? Not by law. The law is all or nothing. Sabbatarians are fond of saying, "Jesus did not die so we could continue to sin." Well said! But He also didn't die so we could continue failing to achieve righteousness via the Old Covenant. There is but one way for us: faith!

(ROM. 3: 21-22a) But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.
(PHP. 3: 9) ...and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith...

This grace comes only by being one with Him through faith, He solves the problem as we are credited His righteousness and covered by His grace. This is about so much more than just forgiveness! In this life and in our present condition, the path to achieving real, biblical righteousness is not to look to ourselves but to Him. His efforts, not ours. His righteousness, not ours. Not to the law, which is beneath, but to faith and love, which is above.

Do me this favor - read the book of Romans again with this in mind. I know you don't agree with me yet, but try anyway. Especially chapters 3 and 4. See for yourself if it fits. But here is one good selection for you:

(ROM. 9: 30-32) 30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.

Once you see it, you'll see it all over in the New Testament.

(GAL. 5: 5-6) 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision [being a Jew with the law] nor uncircumcision [being a Gentile with no law] avails anything, but faith working through love.

Remember this phrase: Jesus is the law-keeper.
(ROM. 5: 19) For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
He is the only one who ever truly kept it. He is the only one who could. The law is one indivisible body. Break one and you're broken them all. In over a thousand years of law-keeping, Israel never once achieved the goal. Only Jesus, the True Israel, did. And the Sabbatarian conclusion is even more of the same frustrated failure? No! Jesus Himself tore down that system. And He replaced it with Himself (ROM. 10: 4).

When you conclude righteousness comes from laws, you stumble over Jesus, the source and goal of righteousness. But when you conclude righteousness comes from God to us through faith, you fulfill the goal of the law.

Get this in place first. Then, let our lives be an expression of this truth; of His love. It is the only way.

And that should lead you to realize this: Works are not a cause of righteousness, they are a result.

Righteousness is a proper relationship with God, and works should be an expression of the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. For sake of time, I am not going to get into works today. But understand that "works" does not equal law-keeping. It equals love. Faith expressed in works of love. James and Paul, Peter and John all speak the same thing on this. And that is why Paul can say, "for whatever is not from faith is sin," (ROM. 14: 23b), and "love fulfills the law" (ROM. 13: 8-10; GAL. 5: 14; JAS. 2: 8).

Murder is wrong? Correct. Adultery is wrong? Correct. Theft is wrong? Correct. Then we must keep a seventh-day Sabbath, too. False!
How??
The nature of God, and faith working through love! A well-formed conscience that follows the Holy Spirit is not going to be doing evil things. They will be enjoying a Sabbath rest in Jesus Christ.
The Old Covenant and its laws is gone. A direct connection to God is brought in. Faith and love - that is the law in the New Covenant. (It has always been the law. I JON. 2: 7; II JON. 1: 5-6.)

(I JON. 3: 23) And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

The road to Sabbatarianism is paved with a fundamental misunderstandings of law, faith, love, sin, and righteousness. Sabbatarianism is not necessarily a detour away from these things, but it very easily can be.

CONCLUSION

I think that's enough. Those are the most important points, in my experience, that lead to Sabbatarianism. These are things I wish I'd known before I "studied" myself into the system. I hope they help you. There are definitely more things that could have been on the list, but I needed to choose only so many or risk dragging this out far too long.

In this series, we saw how the road to Sabbatarianism always involves:

• Insufficient information - The road to Sabbatarianism always involves not having enough accurate information which one needs to truly understand the issue and make truly informed decisions. Hopefully these articles help with this.
• Misunderstanding who Jesus is - This is the most important point in this list. Understanding who Jesus is and what He did, and following that through to its conclusion, is key not just to this but to everything.
• Misunderstanding the two Covenants - We must, must, must comprehend what a covenant is and which Covenant we belong in. Truly understanding this point alone would solve most issues.
• Misunderstanding the singular nature of the law - There are not 10 laws, nor 20, nor 500, but 613, in the Old Covenant. Do not add to nor take away from them. Keep all the law, or you're not keeping the law at all. Jesus is the only one who ever has, or could.
• Misunderstanding to whom the Bible was directly written - It wasn't to "us". But it was for us.
• Misunderstanding the Sabbath in the New Covenant - Going to church on Sabbath is never commanded anywhere in the Bible. Not once. Rest is, though. But the Sabbath day never gave rest. A new rest was promised and now it is delivered. The rest is by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. The rest is for our very souls.
• Misunderstanding sin and righteousness - Both sin and righteousness exist apart from laws. Laws only put sin on display and condemn us. Righteousness and sin are not in laws, but in our proper relationship with God. A rightly ordered relationship with God is bounded by the New Covenant. Believe, have faith, and stay true to the Covenant God made with you, and you will be counted as righteous by faith. Same as Abraham. Then, go, love God and one another.

If you spend just a little of your precious time to study these things before you rush off to a Sabbatarian church, you may just save yourself quite a bit of headache later on down the road.

Most of my target audience will never read this far. It is simply too much for the legalist mindset to accept. You, dear reader, are to be commended for making it to this point. Have these been difficult things? I do apologize. I honestly feel like this is a Christianity 101 series. The basics. At least they ought to be basics. If modern church leaders would do their jobs properly, they would be. I know this can be a very difficult topic until it "clicks" (sometimes, even afterward). There is a lot more to this topic than I can get to here. So, to help you further, I suggest a few articles:
"Without the Law There Is No Sin"
"Sin And The Law"
"Covenant Loyalty, Righteousness In Faith"
"Are The Ten Commandments Removed?"
"Works, Faith and Salvation - or Faith and Parachutes, Part 2"
"Faith, What It Aint"
"What Use Is The Old Law?"
"Common Legalist Arguments part VI"

Our Categories page has quite a few more articles to help you now that you have the basics.

Our friends over at the "God Cannot Be Contained" blog also have some very helpful material for you. They would love to help you along your journey to understanding.
Also, Rescue Ministries International has a fabulous article on the Sabbath which I highly recommend, titled "The Sabbath, the Patriarchs, and the Sinai Covenant".

I leave you with a prayer, dear reader, beloved by God. I pray the Holy Spirit fill you and guide you to a fuller, deeper faith and love in and through Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father. I pray you will be led by the Holy Spirit to a truer understanding and a more meaningful walk with Him in the New Covenant.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Testaments vs Covenants

I wanted to do a very brief post to explain something that I think confuses a lot of people, especially in Sabbatarian systems like Armstrongism. I thought a graphic might help. The issue is one of Testaments versus Covenants. They aren't the same thing, and they do overlap. It's important to know this.

Let's start with the basics:

Testaments refer to collections of books. There are two testaments of the Bible: the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Old Testament contains all of the books from Genesis to Malachi. They center mainly around the history of Israel. The New Testament contains all of the books from Matthew to Revelation. They mainly center around Jesus and the Apostles.

Covenants refer to contracts with God's involvement. There are two great covenants in the Bible: the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
The Old Covenant was between God and Israel only, and starts at Israel's experience at Mt. Sinai, which you can read about in the book of Exodus. The Old Covenant ended when Jesus died on the cross. The New Covenant is between God and anyone who accepts the covenant. The New Covenant began when Jesus died on the cross. The New Covenant has no end.

The confusion I am referring to is that many people seem to think the Old Covenant stopped at the same place the Old Testament stopped, and the New Covenant starts in the same place the New Testament starts. That is not true! The Old Testament stops before the Old Covenant does. Yes, the Old Covenant continues into the New Testament.

This handy graphic explains it all -

You will have to imagine the four Gospels stacked one on top the other, so they all start and end in the same place. But you get the point.
Notice how the Old Covenant extends to the end of the four Gospels. The Old Testament stops at Malachi, but the Old Covenant keeps going.
To be even more precise, the Old Covenant ended at the cross. It was just easier making the graphic the way I did.

People are mistaking where the Covenants begin and end versus where the Testaments do. How does this mistaken understanding manifest? We see it in Armstrongism quite frequently, when people say things like, "Jesus kept the Sabbath, so we should too."

How is that a mistake? Jesus did keep the Sabbath, after all. Don't we want to be like Him?
It is a mistake because He had to do that. He lived His entire regular human life as a Jew during the Old Covenant period. You read about it in the New Testament, but it's during the Old Covenant.

The Old Covenant did not end until He died on the cross. Jesus did everything an Old Covenant Jew would have normally done (only He never sinned, so He never had to do the ritualistic parts regarding atonement for sin/defilement). Of course, Jesus did not do everything the way the religious leaders thought He should. That much is obvious. Yet, He was a Jew during the Old Covenant period none the less and would have behaved accordingly. He had to. He was under that Covenant. Hence, the Sabbath observance.

Are we in that Old Covenant? No. So, claiming we are beholden to the terms of the Old Covenant because Jesus was is a mistake. What Jesus wanted us to do as His disciples is clear: be loyal to the Covenant we are in.

Jesus is not a way backwards to the Old Covenant.

The same with the Apostles. Same with the Rich Young Ruler. Same with every Jew in the Gospels. All of them lived during the Old Covenant. None of them are secret entrances back to the Old Covenant.

Even if they were, they wouldn't lead to one or two or Ten laws only. It's all or nothing.
Most people who try to sneak their way into the Old Covenant don't want all 613 laws. They only want one or two things, and usually that's the Sabbath day. Maybe they will pinch tithes and meats on the way out. Well, that's just not how Covenants work. One does not sneak into the Old Covenant to enjoy a buffet.

So, bear in mind the difference between the Testaments and the Covenants, and pay particular attention to where they begin and end. It might just clear up a few things.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Review - Written By The Finger of God

Given my recent foray into the Seventh Day Adventist view of "The Law (the Ten Commandments)", I thought it would be interesting to see if SDA ideas and interpretations had already made their way into Armstrongism. It only took minutes to answer that question. Yes, they have. And for quite a while now, at that.

Today's post is going to be a companion to the post I just linked to. If you haven't read that post, you won't fully understand this one. And if you haven't read that post recently, you will miss some parallels in this one.

In that post, I received a comment from a long-time reader, Child Survivor. They say, "Their [the SDA's] reasoning for distinguishing the 10 from the rest is simple. It was written in stone by the finger of God."
I decided if I was to learn if Adventism has infected Armstrongism this would be where I start looking. It wasn't long until I found an article on the United Church of God's Beyond Today site, entitled "Written By The Finger of God", authored by one Robert Berendt, and posted July 3, 2001.
All of my quotes from Mr. Berendt will be from this publication. It is web-based, so there are no page numbers to reference.

Herbert Armstrong, it is said, got his inspiration from God by borrowing material from other churches. One of his favorite sources was the COG7's "Bible Advocate" magazine. We talk about this in our article "This Has All Happened Before". Could it be the tradition of taking ideas from other churches lives on at the UCG? I suspect so.

There are three things you should keep in mind as you read this:
1) All the Old Covenant law, including the Sabbath, only exist as terms within a covenant. God didn't bring laws on their own. God brought a Covenant. That covenant had terms.
2) The Old Covenant was for Israel only and excluded the Gentiles almost entirely.
3) The Sabbath was not a day to go to church. It was a day of rest. It's about resting from normally assigned tasks, not going to corporate worship.

IT'S LIKE SO AMAZING

"It is quite amazing that we humans do not recognize the importance of the Biblical statement that the Ten Commandments were written by the finger of God."
-Robert Berendt

Is it truly that important, though, or is this just rhetoric? Is it true that, specifically because they were written by the finger of God, we can set the Ten above all other laws? Is that the critical MISSING KEY (to borrow a phrase from Herbert Armstrong)? What other evidence supports this?

Moses didn't think it was that important when he smashed those tablets. The Jews don't think it to be critically important. All 613 mitzvot are equal to them. When Jesus was asked what are the great commandments in the law, He did not respond, "Why, the Ten, of course, because I wrote those with my own finger." No, He spoke of other laws on which all the law and the prophets hang. The Apostles never mentioned it. Paul didn't feel the ministry of death was any less deadly just because it was written and engraved on stone by God (II COR. 3: 7), or any less the law of sin and death (ROM. 8: 2). It wasn't emphasized in the early church. Even Herbert Armstrong didn't make a big deal about it. What Armstrong made a big deal about was the "Law of Moses - Law of God" issue. Rod Meredith wrote the Worldwide Church of God's official booklet on the Ten Commandments. Although he does say the Ten are the spiritual law, he didn't base that on the finger of God. He didn't base it on anything, really. He didn't mention the finger of God at all. In fact, it didn't seem to be all that important to anyone anywhere until the Seventh Day Adventists decided to make it a big deal. This is a claim they make central. The UCG only borrows the notion.
Bear this in mind the next time you say, "I don't care about the traditions of men."

It's as if it only has importance when you're already a Sabbatarian surrounded by other Sabbatarians and you're trying to reinforce what everyone already agrees on. In a phrase, confirmation bias. Perhaps what is amazing is that people think it's amazing.

You can see this is mere confirmation bias from questions such as this:

"Do we comprehend the magnificence of the Ten Commandments? Why would God take the time to speak them and then write them twice?"
-Robert Berendt

Because Moses broke the first set. That's why He did it twice. It's no grand mystery.

Someone might ask, was it not amazing, though, that God wrote these Himself? I would say it was a direct divine act, and so, yes, it was amazing. But, then again, so is "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin". Am I supposed to hold those words in incredible regard, too? Since those words were written by the finger of God, are they universal moral law, too? Amazing, yes, but to what end?

"But xHWA," one might say, "the Bible doesn't say those words were written by the very finger of God."
Oh please. In Exodus 18: 9, it says the plague of lice were the "finger of God." Do we really need to parse the use of "finger of God" to see if it is literal or idiomatic? I would rather not. A disembodied hand writing on a wall in a language no one but Daniel can interpret is plenty miraculous no matter how you argue about exactly whose finger it was.

There is no justification for the type of emphasis people are putting on the Ten. "God wrote them Himself, therefore they are moral and special above all other laws, and eternal, and binding on all mankind" simply does not make logical sense.

We've already reviewed this in our series "Is Ceremonial Law Removed?" and "Are the Ten Commandments Removed?"

Let me ask you this question. Which is more amazing: that God wrote on stone, or that God became man and died and was resurrected and now puts the Holy Spirit into your heart? I don't know about you, but I'm choosing the latter. Writing on stone just isn't the amazing, crucial thing the author is trying to build it into. At the end of the day, those laws could not accomplish God's purpose (ACT. 13: 39; ROM. 8: 3; GAL. 3: 21), and the Old Covenant is gone (HEB. 8: 6, 31).

Don't get me wrong here. I am not making the case that there is nothing at all unique about the Ten. What I am saying is, I do not see any evidence that being written by the finger or God conveys any special powers on the Ten, or makes the Ten somehow timeless and binding on all men. In other words, this claim just doesn't do what the author hopes it will. We just do not see that in the other evidence we have. It seems like a gross overstatement of the case.

WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY

Before I get too far in, I want to acknowledge that not everything Mr. Berendt writes is wrong. For example, he writes:

"It is astonishing to think that humans can presume that God would allow them to change His commandments ... there are those who try to change the commandments such as moving the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday."
-Robert Berendt

Well, yeah. I agree. Anyone who thinks Sunday is the Sabbath, or even the Christian Sabbath, simply does not understand the difference. Sunday is not the Sabbath and never has been. It's precisely this kind of misunderstanding that got us into this mess with Sabbatarianism in the first place.

I want to briefly and roughly explore the history which got us to the problem we face today. If you think history is boring, just skip to the next section.

Shortly after the Reformation, the common person had access to the scriptures but had no access to original languages, or formal training, or understanding of proper hermeneutics, or most any resource whatsoever they would need to correctly interpret what they were reading. They started from the false premise that Sunday is the Sabbath, which it is not, and things only got worse from there. They opened their Bibles and what did they see? Lo and behold, the seventh day is the Sabbath. "Hey," they thought, "it says right here Saturday is the Sabbath. My church is wrong!" And the solution in their less than expert opinions was, "We should be going to church on Saturday."
This is the genesis of Sabbatarianism and all those "you can't change the 4th commandment" complaints.

The problem we face today comes directly from people forcing Sunday to fulfill the 4th Commandment, compounded by other people who shouldn't be making doctrinal decisions trying to resolve the issue and coming to a very wrong conclusion that everyone must go to church on Saturday.

In the 1500s, small groups of people in Europe start going to church on Saturday. In the 1600s, we have evangelists like Stephen Mumford travelling to New England to convert Sunday Christians to Saturday. In the 1700s, we have Seventh Day Baptists in New England. In the 1800s, a few Seventh Day Baptists converted a few Adventists to Sabbatarianism. And then a few Seventh Day Adventists split to form the COG7, and then Herbert Armstrong was fired from the COG7 and formed his own church, and today you're reading my blog.

We see starting from a false premise leads to wild conclusions.

I don't know when Sunday started being viewed as the Christian Sabbath and the new way to interpret the 4th Commandment. I cannot find anything like that in the first few centuries. I owe yet another thanks to Terracet, who sent me an email a while ago. In the email, Terracet mentioned this footnote from Philip Schaff:

"i.e. Saturday. Sunday is never called ‘the Sabbath’ by the ancient Fathers and historians, but ‘the Lord’s day’ (κυριακε)."
-Schaff, Philip, "Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers: Second Series", Edinburgh, 1890.
Specifically, footnote 789, "The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus", Book V, Chapter XXII.
On Sacred-Texts, https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/202/2020187.htm#fn_788.

I agree with Schaff on this point. Reading early works such as "The Didache" or Justin Martyr's "Dialogue With Trypho", we can see a very clear distinction between the Lord's Day and the Sabbath. As we learned in our study into the Quartodecimans, they were also not the Sabbath keepers we were led to believe they were. The Quartodecimans had a radically different view of Sabbath-keeping than Armstrongism.

Some people want to create a hard dichotomy in the early years. They imagine there were either people who went to church on Saturday, or on Sunday, but not both. That is not true. Most people did things on both days. There were Jewish converts who rested on the Sabbath per their national heritage and observed the Lord's Day. It is possible to do both. More than that, there were many who treated neither like a Sabbath day. The Jewish Sabbath just did not exist for most Gentiles. The rest given us by Christ is the Sabbath rest that remains. Even so, they did not treat Sunday like a new Sabbath. That started later on.

Some say the one who first came up with the notion was Origen. But what did Origen mean when he said, "On Sunday none of the actions of the world should be done"? Was it work, or sin?

Some prefer to blame Constantine. We write about that in our article "Constantine vs The Sabbath". The answer is not entirely there, either. Constantine did make Sunday into a day of rest, but in a purely civil capacity not a religious one, and not for everyone because farmers were still allowed to farm. We have to look elsewhere for the full reason Sunday became a day of rest within the church.

The first genuinely unmistakable thing I find is in the Council of Laodicea (about 365 AD), Canon 29, which is translated:

"Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ."
-Schaff, Philip, "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers", Second Series, Vol. 14.
On Christian Classics Etherial Library, https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214/npnf214.viii.vii.iii.xxxiv.html

This makes me somewhat comfortable in accepting the change happened in the 4th century. But, again, farmers were allowed to farm on Sunday. So, a more complete change must have happened later still.

Note: I am not saying Sunday as the Lord's Day started in the fourth century. That started early in the first century. Nor am I saying the bulk of people moved from Saturday to Sunday in the fourth century, as if there were some great shift at that time. I know someone out there will read what I wrote and conclude, "See! xHWA just said Sunday worship started in the 4th century!" No. I did not say that. I said treating Sunday like it fulfills the 4th Commandment seems to have started in the 4th century.

If Archbishop James Cardinal Gibbons, about whom we write in our article "Rome's Challenge", wanted to flex against the Protestants, he would have done better to say the Protestants observe Sunday as a Sabbath due to the authority of the Catholic Church. Sabbatarianism is a direct response to this. So, if you think about it, Sabbatarianism is built on the authority of the Catholic Church.

We should talk about that for a second. The Catholic Church does not hesitate to claim it is the church Jesus started and it has the authority to make doctrinal decisions. Same goes for the Orthodox. The Unified Church (the church before the Catholic/Orthodox split in 1054 AD) made this decision at Laodicea. The Council of Laodicea is an "ecumenical council". So, we have to decide whether they have the authority to bind or loose these kinds of things on their own adherents. Maybe you think they have no right to bind it on you, but do they have the right to bind it on themselves? They think they do. All churches make decisions for themselves, or else there wouldn't be any denominations. The COG splinter churches do the exact same thing all the time. And I'm sure you and I make decisions for ourselves. So, was it entirely unreasonable?
But that debate is outside the scope of this post.

If that one change had been avoided, Protestants wouldn't have retained it, other Protestants wouldn't have reacted to it, and there would be no Seventh Day Adventists - just Adventists only, with their failed prophecies - and Armstrong never would have been converted to it. All of this nonsense we are mired in today could have been avoided. And best of all, I wouldn't have to blog about it and you wouldn't be here reading and being angry at me.

What Jesus did with the Sabbath Day was dissolve it when He ended the Old Covenant at His death. He is our eternal Sabbath rest. Perhaps it should have been left at that.

ONE COVENANT

"There is a huge difference between all that Moses later relayed to Israel from God and the Ten Commandments that were written by the finger of God."
-Robert Berendt

Ummmmm ... no. There is no difference.

Mr. Berendt here is trying to distinguish the Ten above all other laws. Correction, he is trying to distinguish the Sabbath Day - because we all know Sabbatarianism isn't a quest to get the world to stop bearing false witness. They bear false witness all the time. Let's not pretend this is about anything other than the Sabbath day.

There is no functional difference at all between "all that Moses later relayed to Israel from God" (and by "later" we mean over the next several weeks) and the Ten Commandments. Why is there no difference? Because there is only one Covenant.

All were part of one Covenant made with Israel at Sinai. Period. Full stop. All the whole law are co-equal terms of one and the same Covenant. We've said it here a thousand times -
      The law does not exist apart from the covenant.
The individual laws do not stand alone. The whole Old Covenant law only exists within and because of the Old Covenant. The law is the singular body of terms of the singular covenant. The covenant is what binds the law on the people. They agreed to the terms of the covenant (the law, plus the promises, ie. blessings and cursings).
Sabbatarianism simply ignores the Covenant altogether in favor some of its terms.

We have gone over all of this many times before. I suggest you read "The Covenant and the Testimony".

Here is what the Jews believe about their law:

"All 613 of those mitzvot [laws] are equally sacred, equally binding and equally the word of G-d. All of these mitzvot are treated as equally important..."
-"Aseret ha-Dibrot: The Ten Commandments", Tracery R Rich, Judaism 101. Accessed 6-2024.

James, a Jew and zealous for the whole law not just the Ten (and in the very next breath reminds us the law was not binding on Gentiles), tells us if you've stumbled in any of the whole law, you've broken it all (JAS. 2: 10). The law is one unit. The law is not divided by the Bible into the moral law, the national law, and the ceremonial law. Those are manmade constructs. Helpful, but manmade. It's the same thing here. The law is not divided into the Ten and all those other ones over there somewhere. There is no functional difference at all. There is no difference because regardless of who wrote them or when they were given, they are all terms of one Covenant.

If you aren't keeping all the law, then you aren't keeping the law at all. (GAL. 3: 10)

TRANSGRESSION

"The Ten Commandments define sin and give guidelines for humans to live by."
-Robert Berendt

Ummmmm ... what??

I don't know where Mr. Berendt gets this idea that the Ten define sin; the Ten specifically. Not from the Bible! He might grab his King James Version and open to I John 3: 4, which reads:

(I JON. 3: 4) Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

We address the horrendous translation of this verse in the KJV in several articles. We recommend "Antinomianism and Motivation of Heart". In short, that mistranslation is not what the Greek means.
But Mr. Berendt does not grab his KJV to support his claim. He does not use this verse to support his claim at all. He does cite this verse later in his article, but from another version which translates it very differently. If the author didn't get his claim from this verse in the KJV, where did he get it? He doesn't say. He just makes the claim as if it is axiomatic and we are all just going to agree with it. But it isn't obvious at all.

I will tell you where he gets it. He gets it from Herbert Armstrong. 

"...the TEN COMMANDMENTS, God's great SPIRITUAL LAW..."
-Herbert Armstrong, "What Is The True Gospel?", 1972, p. 10

The main justifying verse Armstrong used was Matthew 19: 17-19, where Jesus tells the Rich Young Ruler to keep the Ten Commandments in order to enter into life.

Except! The Rich Young Ruler replies he has been doing that his whole life. Clearly this was a set up. Jesus was leading the young man to something. Jesus then tells him to sell everything he has and follow Him, which saddens the man, who then walks away. The point was never the Ten. Jesus knew the man was already keeping the Ten. It is good that he did so! He was a Jew in the Old Covenant period, after all. It just wasn't sufficient. The point was faith. Jesus demonstrated that even the Rich Young Man's best actions and intentions were insufficient where salvation is concerned, and encouraged him to place his faith in Him. The man didn't like that and went away. He had the Commandments, but refused faith. The "great SPIRITUAL LAW" got him precisely nowhere.
When the Apostles asked Jesus about all of this, His point was not at all about keeping the Ten Commandments. It was entirely about faith. This is the same chapter and selection where you get these two very popular sayings:

“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (v. 26)
"But many who are first will be last, and the last first." (v. 30)

Martha goes into more detail on this topic in her article, "Who Requires What For Salvation?"

That is where Mr. Berendt gets his claim about the Ten Commandments - from Herbert Armstrong bungling a proof-text.

What Mr. Berendt does here is the exact same thing the Adventists do when they say "the law (the Ten Commandments)". They take the whole law, throw away almost all of it, and limit it to the Ten only. We talked about this very thing in my article in the link at the start of this post. Clearly, Adventism has infected Armstrongism. My fears seem confirmed. But where do the Adventists get it? Nowhere! They just make it up and expect us to accept it.

"Can we humans discard or change that which God wrote?"
"Can we add to the laws or take away portions? I think not!"
-Robert Berendt

Well, apparently yes, we can. Because he's doing it right here! He is discarding 98% of the law and retaining 2%.

And it's not just here. Armstrongism changes the law all the time. Just look at how Armstrongism flagrantly changes the law in order to receive tithes. For example, read my post "Who Pays Tithe of a Tithe?"

Again and again and again we see legalism wants it both ways. They don't want anyone to touch the Sabbath, claiming the law is eternal and inviolable, but they immediately discard or change the vast majority of the other laws. And if you want to really split hairs, they change the Sabbath, too. They change it from a day of rest to a day of church and other activities.

This approach of the Ten defining sin causes more issues than it solves. If the Ten define sin, anything not mentioned in the Ten cannot be sin. That is a terrible issue for a legalist system. If the Ten define sin, then you can ignore tithing, meats, holy days, and etc. And, to split hairs again, you can ignore what day you go to church because the Ten do not tell you when to go to church. Whoops!

What did we just explore in the previous section? That the Ten are not above and beyond the rest of the law. Peculiar among the laws in how they were given, yes, ten that represent the entire body of Covenant law, yes, but above and beyond the rest of the laws, no. There, Mr. Berendt drove a wedge between the Ten and the rest of the laws, but at least he kept the rest around. Here, Mr. Berendt replaces all laws with just the Ten. I cannot agree that is how the Old Covenant functioned. More importantly, I cannot agree that is how the New Covenant functions.

Bear in mind, we can debate all day long about how the Ten were this or that, or how the Old Covenant operated this way or that, but the Old Covenant is gone. There is no Old Covenant anymore. We are not under that Covenant. We are in the New Covenant. Everything we are discussing here is purely academic.

But if you think what Mr. Berendt did in this section is unorthodox, just you wait. It gets worse.

AD ABSURDIUM

"Hebrews 8:5 reveals that what God instructed Moses to make was a COPY of that which is in heaven! Moses was to be careful of each detail. Can we not see that what was within the ark was also a copy?"
-Robert Berendt

Again ... what??

For some background, Mr. Berendt is trying to build a case for the Ten by saying they are special in that they are a copy built after a master original in Heaven. The Bible never says this. The Bible never even remotely says this.

Mr. Berendt starts by saying the Ten were placed in the earthly Ark. And they were. That much is true. What Ark? The Ark of the Covenant. The Ten, which represent all the terms of the Old Covenant, were placed in the Ark, the container, of the Covenant. Again, the star of this show is the Covenant, not the Ten.
Mr. Berendt proceeds to point out God told Moses to make a careful copy of things in Heaven. And this is true. But not in Exodus 25: 10-22, where the construction of the Ark was described. In the case of the Ark, God never said to make a careful copy. Mr. Berendt's implication is that the Ark and the Ten are copies of originals that exist in Heaven. For his proof text, he cites Hebrews 8: 5. Let's read that for ourselves:

(HEB. 8: 5) They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."

Mind the details! It says sanctuary. Does it say the Ark is a copy? No. More importantly, does it say the tablets are copies? No. They also put the Book of the Law in there (DEU. 31: 26). Nothing says that was a copy. Aaron's rod that budded was in the Ark, too. Does it say the rod that budded was a copy? No. "But xHWA," I hear someone saying, "Moses didn't make the rod that budded." Correct. He also didn't make the tablets. Remember, Mr. Berendt spent most of his time emphasizing how God wrote on the tablets, not Moses. Why, God's participation is the very thing at the center of this entire post, is it not? But now it's Moses making the tablets. Did God make them or did Moses? Can't have it both ways!

What does it say? The tabernacle, the sanctuary where the Levites served, was a copy. It wasn't that the Ark was a copy, but the sanctuary, the place where the Ark was kept, was a copy. Nowhere does the Bible say God sits on a box with two cherubs over His head. Even when we see representations of God's mobile throne, does it look like the Ark (EZE. 1: 4-28)? No. So, how are the Ark and the two tablets an exact copy? They aren't.

And again, let's read how Paul continues his point:

(HEB. 9: 23-24) 23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.

Does it say Christ entered the Ark? No. Does it say Christ entered the tablets? No. It says He entered a sanctuary. Were the tablets purified with blood every year at Atonement? No. The altar was purified with blood, but not the contents of the Ark.

To support his claim of the Ark being a copy, Mr. Berendt points to Revelation 11: 19, where the Ark is seen in Heaven. He uses this as support that the Ark was always in heaven and the earthly one was just a copy. That is indeed a novel way to interpret this verse. I am unconvinced. I had always been taught this was the Ark that Moses made. We can't find it because it's in Heaven. Yet, I have never found that convincing, either. The Catholics say that is Mary. I am not getting into that here. Just mentioning it as a curiosity and to show there are other ways of interpreting this verse. I interpret Revelation 11: 9 as being just more apocalyptic symbolism.

So, was Paul's (or whoever authored Hebrews) point that absolutely everything, right down to the Ten, is a copy of heavenly originals? No.
The point had nothing to do with the greatness of the Ten, but the superiority of Christ  - particularly the the Priesthood of Christ, the blood of Christ, and the New Covenant in His blood (HEB. 9: 15) - even over Torah. Jesus was greater than the Priesthood and Torah. That is the point.
If Mr. Berendt read Hebrews 8 & 9 and came away with the notion that it demonstrates the superiority of the Old Covenant, I must doubt that he was paying any attention at all.

In our rush to glorify the Ark, let's not forget what Jeremiah said about it:

(JER. 3: 16) “Then it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days,” says the Lord, “that they will say no more, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore."

The Lord doesn't seem too concerned over it.

Mr. Berendt starts at a definite and extrapolates to the completely unnecessary.

Personally, I do not think the copies are meant to be understood as exact copies. For example, I don't think there is a tent in Heaven, or a mobile table for bread, or that there was a curtain obscuring access to the throne, or that the throne was on a box. I get the sense that what Moses was told to make are representatives of ideas. God has a temple, so Moses made a tent for a temple. God has an alter, so Moses made a mobile table for an incense altar. He had to be careful to do exactly what He was told, but they aren't exact copies, they just represent things that are in Heaven. That's just my opinion.

ALL COMMANDMENTS ARE THE TEN COMANDMENTS

The rest of the article is pretty much a grand finale of proof texts containing the English word "commandments" - that do not mean what he takes them to mean - and a bunch of talk about writing the Ten Commandments on hearts - to the exclusion of all other law - and an exhortation to love the Sabbath. Errrr, the Ten, I mean. Typical fare.

As for the English word commandments, we refer you to our article "If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments". It is well past time we get a better quality of discernment in here about this word. I would remind you that the Ten Commandments were never called "commandments" to begin with. That is a mistranslation. Again, I will quote Judaism 101:

"In the Torah, these words are never referred to as the Ten Commandments. In the Torah, they are called Aseret ha-D'varim (Ex. 34:28, Deut. 4:13 and Deut. 10:4). In rabbinical texts, they are referred to as Aseret ha-Dibrot. The words d'varim and dibrot come from the Hebrew root Dalet-Beit-Reish, meaning word, speak or thing; thus, the phrase is accurately translated as the Ten Sayings, the Ten Statements, the Ten Declarations, the Ten Words or even the Ten Things, but not as the Ten Commandments, which would be Aseret ha-Mitzvot."
-"Aseret ha-Dibrot: The Ten Commandments", Tracery R Rich, Judaism 101. Accessed 6-2024.

We cannot give the Ten a new name in English, then use that new name as a basis for interpreting every instance where the English word commandments appears. "Look, these laws are called 'Ten Commandments' now, and there is the word commandments over there, so they are the same thing!" Uhhh .. no. That isn't how proper Bible interpretation works. That is far beyond irresponsible handling of the Word.

As for writing the law on our hearts, we need to think about when God said that. The quote comes from Jeremiah 31: 33. What was the law at that time? Was it the Ten only, or the Ten plus all of those other laws over there somewhere? Obviously it was the whole law. Do you feel like Armstrongists who quote this verse have all 613 laws in mind? No. Does Mr. Berendt have all 613 in mind? No. They all have taken the law, split it into three groups - moral, ceremonial, and national - then evaporated 2/3. We can see every legalist who pulls this proof text fails to believe it themselves. It sounds great when you want to support Sabbath-keeping, but not so great when you understand that package comes with a requirement for New Moons, Gentile exclusion, three trips to Jerusalem every year, booths, shofars, tzitzit, and a Sanhedrin (just to mention a few things). So, I say no legalist who cites this verse really believes it.
My old catch phrase seems particularly relevant here, "The law! The law! Just not that law."

For more on the law being written on your heart, see Bill's article "The Spirit of the Law".

CONCLUSION

Did you keep those three items in mind form the start of this article? Do you see how nothing in this entire article changes any of those three? 

In his article, Mr. Berendt took an idea, blew it grossly out of proportion, and hoped the wonder and glamour of it would sufficiently distract you from noticing there is no substance to it.
The main thrust of this article is the mere fact that the Ten were written by the finger of God makes them superior to all other laws, replacements for all other laws (the ones we don't like), universally applicable to all mankind, and all people should go to church on Saturday. The biggest flaw in the article is the main idea is unproved. He never proved that being written by the finger of God has those results.

I counter "written by God therefore universal" makes no sense, because then anything written by God would need to have those same attributes, including "mene mene tekel upharsin". And "written by God therefore they replace all other laws" makes no sense, which should be self evident, because that should have been true from the very start yet the rest of the law was given after the Ten. If the rest of the law was so replaceable, why give it at all? And "written by God therefore part of the New Covenant" makes zero sense at all, because they were specifically given for the Old Covenant. That just isn't how covenants work. And "written by God therefore go to church on Saturday" makes no sense, because the Sabbath was about rest not church. Going to church on Saturday is a tradition of men.

Are the Ten special? I think so. They were written and engraved on stone separately from the rest. Those Ten represented the entire body of terms of the Old Covenant. Not replace, but represent. So, they are special. I just don't agree that gives them all these attributes Mr. Berendt and the Adventists claim it gives them.

I find the argument that God wrote the Ten with His own hand to be much less convincing than most other arguments. It seems like a grand stretch to me. It definitely bears the marks of confirmation bias. Even when taken with the totality of the rest of the claims of Armstrongism, I just cannot find enough to convince me. Too much other evidence has to be altered or ignored or redefined, or in some cases outright lied about, and that is something I just can't get past. After all that effort, in order to get the Ten to be binding on all mankind, the author is still left trying to find something in the New Covenant that ties the Ten to Gentiles. Being written by the finger of God at Sinai just is not that something.

As for the article itself, it was merely typical at best. Nothing in particular stood out to me. Clearly, it was written for people who already believe like the author. I agreed with the part where he claimed the Sabbath cannot be changed to Sunday. It cannot. I was most disappointed at the section where the author tried to claim the Ten are a copy of originals in Heaven. They were not. That was just taking it too far for my taste. And I believe all this mess stems from unqualified Protestants in the 16th century coming to regrettable conclusions. But at the same time, the article wasn't particularly ridiculous or poisonous like other articles I've reviewed. One particularly bad example would be "Review of COGWA's Origin of Easter". That article was really bad!

The main reason I came to this article in the first place was to see if Adventism had infected Armstrongism in this specific topic, due to a comment by Child Survivor on my earlier post "The Law (The Ten Commandments)". It is the Adventists who make a big deal about the finger of God. Sadly, we can see that, yes, the infection has spread. A little. Good thing not too many Armstrongists seem to be more excited about this particular claim than I am.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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The Law (The Ten Commandments)

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?

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Are The Ten Commandments Removed?

In my post, Is Ceremonial Law Removed? we investigated whether or not the ceremonial law was indeed gone, as many claim. We found that even though it is removed, the very ones who stress the hardest that it is gone are the ones treating it the most like it is not gone. They do this by retaining cherry-picked elements of ceremonial law while telling us those elements are somehow not ceremonial.
Today, we will do this same investigation on the Ten Commandments.

Unfortunately, this topic will mean a long post. My apologies in advance.

Do we have to keep the Ten Commandments in the New Covenant? Does eliminating the Ten Commandments kick the door wide open for an immoral free-for-all, as some claim? Can we modify the Ten Commandments and still say we're keeping them? Are we keeping them even if we don't realize it?

This and more will be explored as you read on. Let's start at the start.

WHAT ARE THE TEN?

The Ten Commandments were first given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Moses was to give them to Israel. They were for Israel alone (DEU. 5: 3). If you read Deuteronomy 5: 1-22 or Exodus 20: 1-17, you'll be up to speed.

Regarding the name "Ten Commandments", I will quote Judaism 101:

"In the Torah, these words are never referred to as the Ten Commandments. In the Torah, they are called Aseret ha-D'varim (Ex. 34:28, Deut. 4:13 and Deut. 10:4). In rabbinical texts, they are referred to as Aseret ha-Dibrot. The words d'varim and dibrot come from the Hebrew root Dalet-Beit-Reish, meaning word, speak or thing; thus, the phrase is accurately translated as the Ten Sayings, the Ten Statements, the Ten Declarations, the Ten Words or even the Ten Things, but not as the Ten Commandments, which would be Aseret ha-Mitzvot."
-"Aseret ha-Dibrot: The Ten Commandments", Tracery R Rich, Judaism 101. Accessed 6-2024.

The Ten Commandments should not be translated "commandments". This fact ought to help people who are confused when they see the word commandments in the New Testament. We might read, "If you love Me, keep My commandments," and think that is referring to the Ten Commandments, because they both say commandments, but that is incorrect. They do not both say "commandments" in Hebrew. Ancient Jews, the actual audience, wouldn't think this. The Ten shouldn't have been translated commandments in the first place.

People argue over how the Ten should be numbered, but the numbering is really an artificial construct. The Bible does not number them. The difference seems to come from what source you used. In the end, it doesn't matter if the Sabbath command is listed as the third or the fourth. The numbering is artificial anyway.

In Armstrongism, the Sabbath command is numbered as the fourth. This happens to be the way most Jewish groups number them. This is not how the Catholics number them. That is neither right nor wrong. It just is. The failure comes in when one accuses others of eliminating the fourth commandment simply because the numbering is different. Catholics have not removed the Sabbath command. They just list it as the third rather than the fourth. You can see that for yourself in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part three, Section two, Chapter one, Article three "The Third Commandment". Church of God ministers bring shame on themselves for violating the command against bearing false witness while they preach about the validity of the Ten Commandments.

COVENANT LAW

The Ten Commandments are "covenant law". What does that mean? It means the Ten Commandments are inextricably part of the Old Covenant.

Think of the Old Covenant as a contract. The only difference between a covenant and a contract is God is directly involved. It is a legally binding agreement between specific parties to achieve specific ends for a specific duration of time. All contracts apply only to the parties of that contract, in this case God and Israel. Contracts by definition cannot apply to anyone who is not party to that contract. All contracts have terms. Terms are what the parties agree to do. The law are the terms. All good contracts also have penalties. Penalties are what happens if the terms are not met. Contracts have a start. The Old started at Sinai. Contracts have a termination. For an individual Israelite, it ended when they died. When God died, it ended for everyone.
We go over this in great detail in our post "Confusing the Covenants".

All 613 laws in the Torah, including the Ten Commandments, are the terms of the Old Covenant. It's not like we have the Torah over here, and the Old Covenant over there, and the two really are only tangentially linked. No. They are essentially linked. The Ten Commandments are integral to the Covenant.

(EXO. 34: 28) So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

(DEU. 4: 13) So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

(DEU. 5: 1-21) … 2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. 4 The LORD talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. 5 I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain. He said… [lists the Ten Commandments].
(DEU. 9: 9) When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.

(DEU. 9: 11) And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

(DEU. 9: 15) So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.

Recall the Ark of the Covenant. Why do you suppose they called it the Ark of the Covenant? Because it was the Ark (box, repository) of the Covenant (Ten Commandments).

(I KIN. 8: 9, 21) 9 Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. 21 And there I have made a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD which He made with our fathers, when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Anyone who insists the Decalogue is not the Old Covenant, I'm very sorry, but the overwhelming weight of this evidence stands against your interpretation.

We have gone over all of this many times before. I suggest you read "The Covenant and the Testimony".

The Old Covenant law does not exist apart from the covenant. The law does not stand alone. The Ten only exist within and because of the Old Covenant. The covenant is what binds the law on the people. They agreed to the terms (the law).

Understanding covenants is utterly, absolutely, critically essential. Not understanding covenants, and how the law and the Old Covenant are one, is the single biggest mistake most legalists make.

If you actually read the Judaism 101 article I mentioned earlier, you will see they start the article like this:

"All 613 of those mitzvot [laws] are equally sacred, equally binding and equally the word of G-d. All of these mitzvot are treated as equally important..."
-ibid

And they are correct! All of the laws in the Old Covenant are equal. Why? Because they are all terms of a covenant. They are covenant law. All of them. This is how James can say:

(JAS. 2: 10) For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

The law that bars Gentiles from observing Passover (EXO. 12: 43-49) is equally binding as the law that says it can only be observed in Jerusalem (DEU. 16: 5-7). Are you keeping Passover? Yes. Are you a Gentile? Yes. STOP! You've violated the law. Are you keeping it in Jerusalem? No. STOP! You've violated the law.

If you are keeping the Ten, but not keeping some other portion of law you don't think is important, then you've violated it all. If you say you need to observe a Holy Day, but don't do all that the law says must be done on that day, then you have not followed the law but you've violated the law.

People who believe they are observing the law by keeping some cherry-picked selection of laws are forgetting that all the whole body of laws is one unit, indivisible. If you stumble in any of it, you’re guilty of all of it.

If you’re not keeping all the law, you’re not keeping the law at all (GAL. 3: 10).

And once you’ve failed, you’ve failed. The law has no provision for forgiveness of a willful sin. For each and every last one of us - except Jesus Christ Himself - it’s already too late. We've already failed. Further failed attempts will not help you.

The good news for us sinners is - when the Covenant ended, the terms dissolved.

Anyone who says the Ten Commandments continue on to today has misunderstood how a covenant works, and misunderstood that the Old Covenant has ended and has been dissolved (HEB. 8: 13). Law gone. End of story. The terms of a covenant do not and cannot continue beyond the termination of the covenant. That was Paul's entire point in Romans 7: 1-6. If the New Covenant has any similarities to the Old (and it does) it is not because the terms came forward, but because similar yet completely new terms were created.

Think of it this way. If you get married you are bound to that covenant so long as you both shall live. But one sad day, your spouse passes away. My condolences on your loss. Eventually, your heart finds new life and you get married again. Once again, you are bound to that covenant so long as you both shall live. You are in the same condition as the first marriage. Why?

A) Because the second marriage is really just a continuation of the first, and the terms of the first marriage "came forward", or,
B) Because all marriages have similar terms because they have similar reasons to exist, but this is a brand new marriage and not a continuation of the first in any sense?

The answer is B. The first is gone, dissolved, no longer existing, but the second is going to be similar just because of the nature of it. And so it is with the two Great Covenants.

Paul's uses marriage as an example in Romans 7: 1-4. His point is the Old Covenant is gone. You have died in baptism, and the law has no hold on you any longer.

This is where the excuse-making starts up.

People will claim the law is eternally binding, they proof text "not one jot or tittle", they make up fantasies about British Israelism, etc etc.
We have several posts addressing these excuses and workarounds. Try reading our series on Common Legalist Arguments or "Two Trees - Two Covenants".
Some people even go so far as to deny there is a New Covenant. That is patently ridiculous.
But all of these excuses fall down flat when we inspect them fairly and honestly, from a neutral standpoint.

DO WE NEED TO KEEP THE TEN?

No.

The Ten Commandments are terms of the Old Covenant, and the Old Covenant is gone so the Ten are gone. We do not have to "keep" the Ten Commandments. Jesus died and it is gone for all, you died with Him in baptism so it is gone for you, and it was confirmed in Acts 15 & 21 that the law is not necessary for new converts. You do not need to keep the Ten Commandments.

"Wait! What!? Now I know you've lost your mind, xHWA!" [rips garments]

Hold on! Don't tear your garments yet. Hear me out.

People think they must keep Old Covenant laws, like the Ten, first because they don't understand covenants (which is why I started there), second because that is what they were told and they haven't thought it through or haven't heard the other side (which hopefully this article is going to help you do), and third because they find it difficult to argue against a law that says something like You shall not murder. Let's look at that.

"How can you not keep that law? Christians don't murder! Is it ok for me to sleep with your wife?"

I used to say that same thing, and I thought it was clever, too. It is true that it is not acceptable to murder, steal, bear false witness, or commit adultery in the New Covenant ...but not because of the Ten Commandments. It has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments.

"xHWA, you're contradicting yourself. You don't have to keep them, but you do have to keep them?"

This is no contradiction. The law is gone, but morality remains.
I recommend Miller Jones' article "Washed, Sanctified, Justified, and Glorified in Jesus".

Oh, bet your backside morality remains!! Revelation 21: 8 is not the verse the "Buddy Christ" type like to cite. On the other hand, legalists assume the Old Covenant law is the only place we can find morality. That is not so!

"There is another."
-Yoda (It's not a Vader quote, but it will have to do.)

The Old and the New have similarities, but not because laws from the Old have come forward. How can the two be similar without the laws coming forward? Because they have the same author. There is something above and beyond the law. It has nothing to do with the Old Covenant law, and everything to do with love.

(ROM. 13: 10) Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
(JAS. 2: 8) "If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you do well."
(I COR. 13) [read the whole chapter]

The terms of the two Great Covenants have similarities, not because they are the same, nor because anything "came forward", but because above them and beyond them is one and the same principle of love.

"But x, all the Commandments are reiterated in the New Testament."

All except the Sabbath command, you mean. This does not indicate nine of the Ten have come forward. It indicates the same principle of love dictates both Covenants.

When the Ten are mentioned in the New Testament, they are being used as examples. If you look closely, you will see the Apostles quoting the Old Covenant regularly. That doesn't mean it all comes forward. We just read Romans 13: 10, but let's read verses just prior:

(ROM. 13: 8-9) 8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Do you see how Paul is just quoting them to make a point? He isn't bringing them forward, he is showing how love fulfills them. His point is love, not law. Even when James quotes from the Ten in James 2, his point is really about mercy. Isn't mercy really about love? Read James 2: 8 again. The Apostles use the law to help us understand a point, then direct our eyes above the law, to something greater - to love.

Where did the Apostles get this idea? They got it from Jesus.

(LUK. 10: 25-28) 25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” 27 So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ” 28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

The lawyer was quoting Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 and Leviticus 19: 18. These are the two great commandments. Jesus responds, "do this [love] and you will live.” Jesus reiterates this same thing in Mark 12:

(MAR. 12: 29-31) 29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

Remember, the Ten are mistranslated as "commandments". These two which Jesus cites, He calls  commandments. They are greater than the Ten. Greater than the Ten?? Yes! It is no coincidence this information is recorded twice.
And where did Jesus get this idea? From His nature.

(I JON. 4: 7-8) 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Two different covenants, for two different peoples, for two different purposes - both initiated by one and the same God, who IS love. Of course they are going to have similarities because of God. That moral nature is most certainly reflected in the Old Covenant law. God gave commandments and statues for Israel's good because He loves. Same as now.

At the outset of this post, I emphasized how the Old Covenant is gone. Here, I emphasize how it is similar to the New. I do this so we can discuss something.

I think this is where people stumble. Most everyone understands that there is a need for morality both in the Old and the New Covenants. Something deep inside them just seems to know this. They see that morality itself in its essence has not changed. They know murder was always wrong and always will be (so long as there is mortality). They see points in the Old are practically identical to points in the New. They know that morality is an attribute that flows directly from God's own being. And here they get confused, stumbling over how moral law does not continue forward. The thinking goes like this: "God is eternal, so morality is eternal, so the moral law must be eternal." On the surface, it seems very reasonable. But no.
We went over that in the article "Common Legalist Arguments - Part VI".

The answer to this puzzle is not that the moral law comes forward, but that love is eternal, and love is expressed in very similar ways in both Covenants, even if that isn't obvious.

Love predated the law. Love was in the law. Love is above the law. Love continues past the law.

As we see in Luke, even the lawyer knew the real crux of the law. This was during the Old Covenant period. He read the law and saw the most important parts were to love God and love your neighbor - in the Old Covenant period. That isn't obvious, so this guy was astute. He chose love, and the Author agreed. What this clearly means is moral law was always a subset of love. Jesus said this very thing.

(MAT. 22: 40) On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

In the New Covenant, we are called to look higher than the law. We are called to participate in the essence of our Lord, as part of His spiritual body. We are not called to participate in laws, but directly in that moral nature of God. God doesn't need the law to be moral, and neither does a mature Christian. You don't need the law to be moral any more than you need a shadow to cast a body (COL. 2: 16).
You need love. You need to participate in Him. And how do we participate in him? Faith!

The New Covenant laws are faith and love.

When the scribe reiterated what Jesus said, what was our Lord's response? "You are not far from the Kingdom of God" (v. 34). Not that he had reached it, but that he was close. His law keeping didn't get him there, just like the Rich Young Ruler who kept the law but went away when Jesus showed him there was more to it. Or think of the Pharisees who kept the law fastidiously yet Jesus had little praise for them. Why? Because they were all missing key ingredients. The scribe and the ruler had law but not faith, and the Pharisees had law but not love. They all went away.
For all their law keeping, they still went away.

Now that we've looked at similarities, perhaps it might help to illustrate differences one more time.

Is it ok to rape, or to be arrogant and demeaning, or to do a 'hit and run', or to do a 'bait and switch', or to entrap someone, or to kidnap someone, or to bully someone into harming themselves, or to gaslight someone, or to abandon your spouse, or to take bribes, or to judge unfairly, or to charge someone full price for shoddy work? No! Yet, I don't see any of that listed in the Ten Commandments. Read the Ten again. Guess what's not there: deceit. Is deceit wrong, then? I bet you are going to say 'yes'. Why? Because you just know? No. Because it violates love! You can blow a mile-wide crater into morality and not violate the Ten Commandments, but you will have violated love every single time.
So, which do you suppose is the superior moral system?

DON'T WE KEEP THE TEN ANYWAY?

"Tell me this, xHWA. If we are loving, and love has the same ends as keeping the Ten Commandments - we are loyal to God, we aren't murdering, bearing false witness, stealing, or committing adultery - then, aren't we keeping the Ten Commandments?"
Fantastic question! Yes! ...and no. It depends on your approach.

If you approach this from the perspective of grace and faith, yes, love fulfills the spirit of the law. You have kept every requirement of the Ten without needing the Ten. You've done it! Welcome to mature Christianity. So, yes.
But if you approach this from the perspective of legalism, no, due to our sinful nature you have failed and the law brings a curse to you.

"Come on, x, you're contradicting yourself. I can fail to keep the law by keeping the law?"

Correct. That was no contradiction. It really does matter. 

If it didn't, then Paul wouldn't have written Galatians. He wouldn't have said things like, "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?" (GAL. 4: 21) Or, "You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." (GAL. 5: 4)

Those are heavy words! Your approach matters.

Is that what you think you've done, kept the Commandments? You sat on your hands one day out of seven? You didn't murder, so therefore you've kept the commandment? Or you didn't commit adultery, therefore you've kept the commandment? How easy it would be if that were the standard! But it's not.

In Matthew 5: 21-30, Jesus shows that sin is of the heart. Violation of the Commandments happens long before you ever act out anything. If you lust, you're done. If you anger without cause, you're done. Game over. Fail! The game is already over for you. There is no going back to the starting line because the game is over.
By that standard, we've all failed .. me too! I've miserably failed. Worse than you, I'd bet. For all my blogging and preaching about love, I've blown it for the law. I am guilty under the law! Mea culpa! And I have no hope left in the law.
More law, or rather more failure, will get us all precisely nowhere.

All this talk about we've kept the Commandments just because we didn't kill is nonsense. Herbert Armstrong knew this. He preached this very thing, and he was right! (See? We admit when he was right.)
But then he would go on to say in the New Covenant the law is harder. No. Wrong. Matthew 5 is during the Old Covenant period, not the New. This was always the standard. Just read Zechariah 8: 17.
Herbert Armstrong also taught, "Jesus made the law harder to keep, then provides us the Holy Spirit so we can keep it." Again, wrong. Why don't you keep it, then? Is the Holy Spirit a failure? Do you not have enough Holy Spirit? Why are you praying for forgiveness if you've done such a good job? Why are you looking towards the Day of Atonement? Because you know this fails just as much as I do. We go over this in "Common Legalist Arguments - Part I".

Making it harder was not what Jesus was doing. He was merely stating what the standard had been all along. He was making His audience aware of what the standard actually was.
It was always this hard!

No wonder Isaiah says, "But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (ISA. 64: 6). No wonder Peter calls law keeping, "...a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear" (ACT. 15: 10).

That's right. Even at our best, we do not rate. Not even close. You might think you're keeping the Ten, but there's a decent chance you're not. Did we not just read Paul, who said, "you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace" (GAL. 5: 4)?

The same Paul who said that also said this:

(ROM. 9: 30-32) 30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.

And that is why Paul said this:

(GAL. 2: 18) For if I build again those things which I destroyed [the law], I make myself a transgressor.

Israel failed to keep the law by keeping the law. We will fail to keep the law by keeping the law.

So, this is a yes and a no. Approach this through legalism and you will fail, but approach it through faith and grace and you will fulfill the whole law.

Now that I've said that, I want to make something abundantly clear ---
I am not saying that merely keeping a law is what causes you to fail. For example, merely keeping a seventh-day Sabbath does not cause you to fail. People on one side say keeping Sunday is a sin. People on the other side say keeping Saturday is a sin. Both are wrong. What I am saying is that looking to the law for righteousness causes you to fail. For example, demanding that Christians must keep a seventh-day Sabbath, and thus holding yourself up as superior to others because you do, will cause you to fail. Once the idea of "earn" or "merit" or "qualify" is added to law, you've failed. If keeping a day helps you feel closer to God, do it. If you are a Jewish convert and you see the law as your heritage, do it. If eating pork harms your conscience, don't do it. Only don't think it gets you anywhere with God. And by all means, do not judge and condemn your fellow Christian who disagrees (ROM. 14: 6).

THE ONLY WAY

"But x, you are violating Matthew 5: 19 by breaking the commandments and teaching others to do so."

Au contraire!

There is but one way to accomplish our goals, oh beloved of God. One and only one. There is no other. That way is faith.

The scribes and Pharisees were fastidious! If you recall my post "Tithing - You're Doing It Wrong" you see how how fastidious they were. They were the penultimate law keepers, yet they blew it. Our Lord's harshest criticism, as always throughout the Bible, was reserved for the leadership. They failed the law because they pursued the law as an end unto itself. They kept the Sabbath yet failed at Sabbath-keeping, as Aphraphat the Syrian abundantly pointed out (see the article "Quartodecimans - Were They Law-Keepers?"). Why? The law was more important than mercy. They neglected the weightier matters of faith and love.

Even so, Jesus said this about them:

(MAT. 5: 20) For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Why?
You see, He was paying them a backhanded compliment (that means it wasn't really a compliment). All of their law keeping, which the people were impressed by, didn't impress Jesus. The righteousness of law keeping is not what He wanted.

How can our righteousness exceed theirs, then? The one way and only way is the righteousness of faith ... the righteousness of Jesus Christ. How does Jesus' righteousness make you more righteous than the Pharisees? Let Paul tell us.

(II COR. 5: 21) For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

His righteousness becomes our righteousness by faith.
By faith not law?
Yes! The righteousness God seeks is not our righteousness, but HIS own righteousness attributed to us by faith.

(PHP. 9: 9-11) 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

In Phillipians 9, Paul, one of the very Pharisees that Jesus was talking about, gives us a long list of his genealogical, educational, and legal bona fides. He counts them all as dung! Why? Because no matter how good a human is, no matter how credentialed, no matter how careful, NONE of that can compare to the righteousness of God. God's own righteousness can only come to us one way: by faith.

(ROM. 1: 17) For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
(ROM. 3: 20-22) 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe...
(ROM. 4: 5) However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
(2 PET. 1: 1) Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours
(GAL. 3: 10-14) 10 All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." 11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them." 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Paul mentions Abraham. What of Abraham?

(ROM. 4: 13-14) 13 It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless.

It was always by faith. The whole time.

It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. In Matthew 5: 20, Jesus was really talking about Himself. Only by being joined with Him through faith can His righteousness be gifted to us, and there alone can we surpass the scribes and Pharisees. Unless your righteousness is really HIS righteousness attributed to you by faith, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Remember, our righteousness is like filthy rags, and Jesus did not make the law harder because that was always the standard. Well, the standard is a lot harder yet.

(MAT. 5: 48) Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

"Oh, xHWA! How in Heaven or on earth can imperfect beings like us possibly be perfect like God the Father is perfect? I can't do that!"

You're right. You can't. It is impossible
...except when the blood of Christ washes us clean and God's own righteousness is attributed to us when we become one with Jesus through faith.

It is the only way.

So, cheer up! Lift up your face to the Son and be glad. He has you in His hands. Just believe.

(MAT. 19: 26b) “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

If you are still looking at your shortcomings and wondering what this all means, you need to understand something.
As with many other things in the Bible, it is partly completed now and fully completed in the future. It's not that we are perfect in this lifetime, but when God looks at us He sees His own perfection attributed to us. That's the agreement. It is attributed to us until such a time when we will be fully made perfect (EPH. 1: 13-14). He sees our potential. A potential that is not achievable without faith. So be content for now, and believe.

"...by faith from first to last."

You are one with Him by faith. By faith you are attached to Jesus the Vine, and you, the branch off that Vine, will bear fruit. First faith, then fruit. Or, if you will, first faith, then works.

Saving faith → Grafted in → In-dwelling of Holy Spirit → Attributed righteousness of God → Do works of love → Bear fruits of love.  That is how it works in the New Covenant.

Am I throwing Matthew 5: 19 out the window? No. I am not telling you to break the commandments. I am telling you the only way you can possibly hope to keep them as expected.

CONCLUSION

There is a confusion going on of the Ten Commandments and the word commandments in the New Testament. The Ten never should have been translated commandments in the first place. The word commandments in the N.T. can be any command, and most often does not refer to the Ten.

The Ten are covenant law, but Old Covenant law not New Covenant law. They are only 10 out of 613 equal terms. Break any one and you've broken them all. Those who are under the Old Covenant must keep it's terms (and that is precisely nobody). Those who are under the New Covenant must keep its terms (and that is all Christianity). If you try to keep the Old Covenant while in the New Covenant you are sitting on a fence satisfying neither.

What are the laws for the New Covenant? Faith and love. Law is not the essential component, love is. Love, inspired and directed by the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you because you are joined to Jesus by faith. Never has righteousness come from the law. Jesus took your sins on Himself so He could attribute His righteousness to you by faith. This is the only way any of us can achieve the righteousness God is looking for: His own. It is the only way.

The moral standards in the Old aren't really that different from the New. There are definite similarities. Those similarities do not come from law, but from the same source as the law: love. When you look at a New Covenant person vs and Old Covenant person, you won't see much moral difference. But try to achieve this by law, and you will fail.

If you've read and understood this post, you should re-read Galatians. I recommend you do that as soon as possible.

James seems to be the star Apostle of the law-minded person. Why, Fred Coulter even wrote his own version of the Bible so he could put James before Paul. (No, that isn't the 'original' order.) James seems to say Old Covenant law things, but when we look closely, he isn't really saying that at all. In the end, James concludes his idea with this:

(JAS. 2: 12) So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.

This is the second time James mentions the "perfect law of liberty" (JAS. 1: 25). Where will you find that law? Not in the Old Covenant! This is a New Covenant idea.
James turns out to be speaking of the same things Paul did, and what I am trying to speak right now. Faith, love, liberty, grace, mercy, charity, patience, forgiveness... these are the New Covenant standards. Not individual laws, but big concepts. Concepts that flow straight from God's nature.

New Covenant standards are spiritually mature standards. Mature is not easy. Adulting is hard! It's not simple. I am not saying "remove the law and life gets simple." Nor am I saying "remove the law and Christianity becomes a Wild West free-for-all, where you do exhaust your every lust and turn to Jesus for the forgiveness you knew you would need afterward." I am saying, follow the guidance of the in-dwelling Holy Spirit. If you do that, you will no longer need laws.

So, do you have to keep the Ten? No. But if you step into the New Covenant in faith and follow the Holy Spirit in love, you will fulfill the spirit of the whole law, and with Christ's own righteousness attributed to you. In faith and love, you will keep them in a way you never could if you just attempted to keep them to the letter.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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