A recent article on a liberal Adventist website raises doubts as to whether the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment is a mandatory observance for Christians [1]. While acknowledging the blessings and beauty of the Sabbath, the anonymous author insists that she “can’t believe that all of the kind and loving Sunday keepers are excluded from heaven because they worship God a day later than we do” [2].

One continues to be amazed at how presumably born-and-bred Seventh-day Adventists could raise questions regarding any number of their church’s settled Biblical teachings. But in the end, we shouldn’t be surprised. The dragon’s rage at the remnant of the woman’s seed is growing in ferocity with the passage of time (Rev. 12:17), and the various attacks on our faith that have marked our history will continue in most cases to be rehashed.

And these continuous attacks are helpful, as each generation of Adventists must discover and internalize our faith and its principles for themselves. Even with some of the recent high-profile departures from the church, many in our time have little familiarity with the anti-Sabbath arguments that have been raised in the past from both within and outside our denomination.

A Popular Doctrine

It’s fair to say that despite those in the church who frequently fault its restrictions, the Sabbath tends to be a doctrine with favorable reviews from across the denomination’s theological spectrum. Its weekly recurrence and call to rest from the cares of life makes it both conspicuous and welcome in the lives of busy Christians. The following observation by the anonymous author in question offers a notable example in this regard:

The Sabbath is a lovely gift of God to Seventh-day Adventists. It invites us to show that we love God. The way Adventists have traditionally kept the Sabbath can be beautiful and spiritually uplifting [3].

Even those not as strict as others in their observance of this weekly marker tend to nurture a high regard for it. For any number of reasons, people who leave our fellowship find the Sabbath difficult to give up.

Offending in One Point

The New Testament is clear that all Ten Commandments are to be observed by those expecting a favorable outcome in God’s final judgment:

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty (James 2:10-12).

It is clear in the above passage that the law being described is the original Decalogue (Ex. 20:3-17), with its reference to the commands regarding murder and adultery (verses 13-14). How is it possible that the one commandment God admonishes us to remember (verse 8) is so easily relegated to Christian forgetfulness?

Does the Day Matter?

But does it really matter which day we keep? Does the anonymous author quoted at the beginning have a point when she says she “can’t believe that all of the kind and loving Sunday keepers are excluded from heaven because they worship God a day later than we do” [4].

Adam and Eve might have asked a similar question. Is our infinitely loving God really going to make an issue over which tree we choose to eat from? Lot’s wife might have similarly wondered whether it really mattered to God if she took one peek backward at the city where her daughters and their families had chosen to remain. Possibly Samson may have asked himself whether God would truly abandon him if he let Delilah cut his hair. (After all, it wasn’t the first time he had broken one or another of his Nazarite vows.) And we know for a fact that General Namaan objected to being told by God to wash in the muddy river Jordan, when in fact two rivers back home seemed so much better for bathing (II Kings 5:12).

Moving to the New Testament, perhaps Ananias and Sapphira wondered why God would care if they gave a few shekels less than their original pledge, especially if immediate, possibly unexpected obligations demanded attention.

Let’s be clear, of course, that the ignorant violation of any of God’s requirements is not held against anyone. The Bible assures us that God winks at the times of our ignorance (Acts 17:30), and declares through the apostle James that “to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). Whether we speak of the Sabbath or any other divine commandment, God is completely fair in judging our choices based on the light shed on our pathway.

The Uzzah Syndrome

Many will likely recall the example of Uzzah in this regard, relative to God’s particularity so far as His requirements are concerned. More than a few across the ages have wondered at God’s severity in punishing what seems to many as a reflexive act of common sense. The following Ellen White statement helps us understand why Uzzah’s guilt was so egregious, and why God inflicted the penalty that followed Uzzah’s touching of the ark (II Sam. 6:6-7):

Transgression of God’s law had lessened his sense of its sacredness, and with unconfessed sins upon him he had, in face of the divine prohibition, presumed to touch the symbol of God’s presence. God can except no partial obedience, no lax way of treating His commandments. By the judgment on Uzzah He designed to impress upon all Israel the importance of giving strict heed to His requirements [##5|Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 706.##].

Such questions as those raised by the unnamed columnist cited in this article lead us to wonder if the same laxity with regard to the divine law is driving the spirituality of many contemporary Adventists. We might call it the Uzzah syndrome. Erroneous theories of divine forgiveness, together with permissive views of God as benignly tolerant of His children’s ubiquitous waywardness, have caused too many in today’s church to lose sight of the life-and-death seriousness of the conflict between good and evil and the eternal immovability of the law that undergirds the divine government.

Conclusio

Like Samson’s unshorn hair, the seventh-day Sabbath is a sign of our loyalty to God (Ex. 31:16-17; Eze. 20:12,20). Ellen White explains why the loss of Samson’s hair served as the turning point in his walk with God:

Little by little he had violated the conditions of his sacred calling. God had borne long with him; but when he had so yielded himself to the power of sin as to betray his secret, the Lord departed from him. There was no virtue in his long hair merely, but it was a sign of his loyalty to God; and when the symbol was sacrificed in the indulgence of passion, the blessings of which it was a token were also forfeited [##6|——Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 566.##].

Critics of the Adventist Sabbath doctrine have often said that there is “no redeeming power in a day.” Perhaps not, but neither was there strength in Samson’s long hair. Nor was there healing power unique to the waters of the river Jordan. But both represented tokens of loyalty and obedience. The same is true with the seventh-day Sabbath.

REFERENCES

1. “Aunty, is the Sabbath mandatory for Christians?” Adventist Today, July 28, 2025 https://atoday.org/aunty-is-the-sabbath-mandatory-for-christians/

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 706.

6. Ibid, p. 566.