by Terry Wane Benton
Seventh-Day Adventists have long made the claim that the “law of God” is the moral and permanently binding "Ten Commandments” that were kept inside the ark of the covenant while claiming that the “law of Moses” was different. They claim it was “ceremonial” law and placed “in the side of the ark as something that would eventually pass away. They argue that the “stone” tablets indicate a permanence as indicated by the rock-solid material and its preservation inside the ark of the covenant, while Moses wrote the other things on less durable material, and it was held in a less significant place, outside the ark of the covenant. So, they make the argument that one is the permanent “law of God” and the other is the passing “Law of Moses”. One is supposedly the “moral” law for all people and all time, while the “ceremonial” law was intended to pass away in Jesus Christ. We want to analyze this argument and “search the scriptures…whether these things are so” (Acts 17:11).
When Jesus was asked about “what is the great command in the law” (Matthew 22:22), He did not point to the Ten Commandments as if the greater law is to be found there. He did not believe that the Law of Moses was merely a lesser “ceremonial” law. Jesus said the greatest two commandments were found outside the Ten Commandments, thus refuting the imagination that the Ten Commandments represent the greater and permanent “moral” law. The Ten Commandments were a “Decalogue”, meaning a limited “prologue” to a bigger body of law. The Decalogue (10 Commandments) is a sampling and introduction, not the most important, and not the only “moral” law to be kept distinct from the rest of the Law. Jesus quotes from Leviticus 19 as “the Law” and that it contains the “greatest” commandment. Leviticus 19 contains some things that are moral duties, some civil duties, and some ceremonial precepts, all mingled together. There is no neat distinction like the Adventists claim. The greatest commandments are actually in what they call the “Law of Moses” (their so-called “ceremonial law), and the so-called “Law of God”, the Ten Commandments (what they call “moral law”) is never called “the Law of God” as opposed to “the Law of Moses”. Luke 2:22-27 uses the “Law of Moses” and “Law of the Lord” and “Law of God” interchangeably to speak of ceremonies. So, the Adventist claim is wholly made from imagination.
Paul said we have become “dead to the law,” and when you might think he was only talking about “the ceremonial law,” the so-called Law of Moses that contained everything outside the Ten Commandments, he actually quoted the Law that said, “You shall not covet” (Romans 7:4,7). So, we have become dead to the Law that included one of the Ten Commandments. The fact that the Ten were written on stones was not to illustrate the permanence of Law but rather to illustrate easily “broken” material. Moses saw the children of Israel had already “broken” the Law as he was coming down the mountain, so He smashed them in a symbolic gesture of how quickly they had broken the commandments. Paul further illustrated his point that “the law” containing “do not covet” was like a “husband” that a woman is bound to “as long as he lives” (Romans 7:2) and that the woman cannot “be released from the law of her husband” until there is a death. To be “married to another,” namely Christ, there had to be the death that freed from the first husband, Moses. You cannot be married to Moses and Jesus at the same time, else that would be spiritual adultery. So, the inspired Paul did not see this artificial distinction between “the law of God” and the “Law of Moses”. In II Corinthians 3, Paul spoke of what was engraved on stones as a ministration of death that was “passing away”. So, none of the claims of the Adventists actually hold up to the biblical evidence.
We are answering the argument commonly offered by Sabbatarians who believe that the Law of God is the Ten Commandments (which includes the Sabbath command) and the Law of Moses is everything else in the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). We have shown that Jesus did not believe that, nor did the inspired apostle Paul.
The reason this is so important to the Sabbatarians is that they want to see the Sabbath Law in the Ten Commandments as still binding on mankind and that Christians are blinded who meet on Sunday instead of Saturday. Sabbatarians go to great lengths to try to get around the fact that the New Testament outright says the Law was a tutor to bring us to Christ, and after the faith (in Christ) arrived, “we are no longer under the tutor (the Law)” (Galatians 3:24-25). This is devastating to their position, and so they rush to the defense of their sabbath argument. They have to because the Sabbath is their entire reason to exist. Take the Sabbath away and make it something we are “no longer under,” and there is no reason for the Seventh-Day Adventists and Seventh-Day Baptists to exist. So, they invented the argument that “the law of God” is the Ten Commandments and the “Law of Moses” is everything else in the Pentateuch. There would have to be a clear and consistent pattern to the phrases “law of God” and “law of Moses” so that there is no mixing the phrases, and yet there is no consistent pattern that shows “Law of God” only and always has reference to the Ten Commandments and “Law of Moses” only and always has reference to everything else, especially just “ceremonial” things and no “moral” things. Earlier, we demonstrated that such a consistent pattern does not exist and that the Law of Moses and the Law of God are interchangeable and reference the same thing: the entire Law that contains both moral, civil, and ceremonial elements in the same Law. Luke 2:22-27 shows the terms and phrases “the Law,” the ”Law of the Lord,” the “Law of Moses,” and “the Law of God,” are all references to the same thing.
If “the Law of God” was just the Ten Commandments, then Joshua wrote in the Ten Commandments (Joshua 24:26). But since he did not write in the Ten Commandments, then “Law of God” does not exclusively refer to the Ten Commandments. Even what Joshua wrote would be part of the “Law of God,” and this fact is devastating to the whole argument of our Seventh-Day Adventist friends. The Law of God and the Law of Moses are one and the same.
"And keep the charge of the Lord your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn" (I Kings 2:3-4 NKJV).
God’s law and commandments are all written in the “Law of Moses”. The same body of Law is God’s Law because He gave it, and Moses’ Law because he wrote and mediated it to the children of Israel. The Adventists have a false agenda to try to force a distinction that is not truly there.
"The king also appointed a portion of his possessions for the burnt offerings: for the morning and evening burnt offerings, the burnt offerings for the Sabbaths and the New Moons and the set feasts, as it is written in the Law of the Lord" (II Chronicles 31:3 NKJV).
Did you notice that the “ceremonies” that Adventists say are written in the “Law of Moses” are said here to be written in “the Law of the Lord.” There is no distinction, as their imaginations have told us. The Law of Moses and the Law of the Lord are one and the same.
In Nehemiah 8, they read “from morning until midday” (Nehemiah 8:3). Obviously, it wouldn’t take that long to read the Ten Commandments. They were reading and hearing “the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord commanded Israel” (Nehemiah 8:1,14), and the same Book is called “The Law of God” (Nehemiah 8:8,18). The Law of God spoke of the “feast of the seventh month,” and therefore was not just the Ten Commandments. So, the same Book is called “the Law”, “the Law of Moses” and “the Law of God.
Why do the Seventh-Day Adventists and Baptists want to make such a false distinction? Because they formed their heresy around the claim that the Seventh day is the day to “keep,” they pushed the notion that meeting on Sunday was invented by the apostate Catholic Church. Once they built their religion around these false claims, they had to prove that “we are no longer under the Law” did not include the Sabbath Law of the Ten Commandments. This made them have to scramble to try to find a way to protect their sugar-stick command. When Paul said not to let any man judge you in regard to “Sabbaths” (Colossians 2:13-16), they were found to be clearly at odds with Paul’s teaching that we are “no longer under” even the food laws and sabbaths of the former testament. We are “complete” in Christ (Colossians 2:10) and must never allow Sabbatarians to tell us that we are incomplete until we incorporate the Seventh Day into our practice. No! We are complete in Jesus. He is the “substance” that fulfills all the food laws and feasts and new moons and sabbaths of the Old system. Our sabbath is spiritual rest in Christ. The sabbath was only a shadow, the substance is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Don’t let any man judge you in regard to food laws and sabbaths.
