In the baleful tradition of Robert Brinsmead, another professed Seventh-day Adventist from Down Under—I assume he is still an Adventist—has launched a new attack against the binding claims of the seventh-day Sabbath, the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments, the distinction between clean and unclean meats, and the designation of certain ones and not others as God’s chosen people [1].

We can be sure that such attacks will intensify and proliferate as we near the close of time, but it is imperative that thoughtful members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church remain aware of the Biblical evidence that sustains their church’s classic beliefs on each of the points this author raises.

The author in question lists seven of what he calls the “sacred cows” of the original Hebrew faith [2]—a strange label, to be sure, to apply to a monotheistic faith to which idols were anathema. These seven articles of faith, which the author claims the apostle Paul rejected as obligatory for Christians in his epistle to the Romans, are as follows:

1. Circumcision

2. Israel’s “chosen and elite” status

3. The Levitical priesthood

4. Sin offerings

5. The “Mosaic code,” including the Ten Commandments

6. The seventh-day Sabbath

7. The distinction between clean and unclean meats [3].

The Moral and Ceremonial Laws

Like others—past or present—who take his theological position, the author in question makes no distinction between the moral and ceremonial laws so far as Scripture is concerned. Yet the apostle Paul himself is clear, in his discussion of circumcision and its relationship to the Christian, that “circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God” (I Cor. 7:19).

Paul, in other words, did not see commandment-keeping as in the same category as the observance of the Old Testament ceremonial laws. And the apostle James is clear that the Ten Commandment law, not some unspecific aggregate of divine requirements, remains God’s standard of judgment in the present Christian age:

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).

Paul and James, of course, echo the teachings of both Jesus (Matt. 19:16-26) and Solomon (Eccl. 12:13-14) in underscoring the imperative of keeping the Ten Commandments as the standard of salvation and the judgment.

Regarding sin offerings and the Levitical priesthood, Seventh-day Adventists fully recognize that the former ended at Calvary (Heb. 10:1) and that the latter has been replaced by the ministry of Christ in heaven (Heb. 7:25; 8:1). The ceremonial law of the Old Testament is indeed a “shadow of things to come” (Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1); the Ten Commandments, by contrast, represent God’s eternal standard of salvation, applicable in both Old and New Testaments (Eccl. 12:13-14; Matt. 19:16-26; James 2:10-12).

“Chosen and Elite”

The author in question rightly discounts the popular error among the Jews during the New Testament period that “their bloodline, extending back through the ancestors Abraham and Isaac, guaranteed God’s unconditional favor” [4]. He writes that Paul opposed this error with the truth that “salvation has nothing to do with ancestry” [5], and that “God has no favorite race” [6].

But the author in question fails to consider two key aspects of this same truth—that while God has no favorite race upon the earth, He does in fact have a favored people, and that the international, transcultural nature of the faith community has existed since the original call of Abraham, and was not invented by the authors of the New Testament. Regarding the special status of God’s chosen people, Moses declared:

For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth (Deut. 7:6).

Earlier God had declared to Israel that “ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). The same is declared by the apostle Peter to be true of the Christian community of the New Testament:

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people: that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (I Peter 2:9).

But the option of being a part of this chosen nation was open to all people throughout the world, which is why God declared to Abraham when the latter was called out of Ur: “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; see also 22:18; 28:24). Such examples as Rahab the Canaanite and Ruth the Moabitess (Matt. 1:5), heathens who became part of the Israelite community, bear witness to this reality. Centuries later Hanani the prophet declared to Asa, king of Judah:

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him (II Chron. 16:9).

God later declared through the prophet Isaiah: “Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people” (Isa. 56:7), and declared to Israel that “the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising” (Isa. 60:3). Jonah’s message to the people of Nineveh, and the mercy God showed that wicked city on account of their repentance (Jonah 3-4), likewise demonstrated the breadth of God’s plan of salvation long before the time of Jesus and the New Testament apostles.

It is thus quite misleading for the author of this article to speak disparagingly of “the Mosaic code that makes [Israel] a great nation and gives them the advantage over others” [7]. The aforesaid Scriptures are clear that all people of every nation were invited to be part of Israel, provided they adhered through heaven’s power to the conditions of the covenant. Racial superiority had nothing to do with God’s covenant with ancient Israel, just as it has nothing to do with the witness of genuine Christianity in our world today. Which is why, in the New Testament age, the seed of Abraham includes all who accept Christ as their Savior:

And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:29).

The author of the article under review insists that Israel’s belief in its “chosen” status was “a conceit fostered by the Hebrew belief that they were the apple of God’s eye” [8]. But this recognition on their part can hardly be written off as some “conceit,” when in fact the inspired writers of Scripture repeatedly use this metaphor to describe God’s people (Deut. 32:10; Psalm 17:8; Lam. 2:18; Zech. 2:8). Of course, this status on Israel’s part was conditional on obedience (Ex. 19:5; Deut. 28), which Scripture says can be accomplished only through the writing of God’s law upon the heart and the transforming power thus provided (Deut. 30:14; Psalm 119:11; Jer. 31:31-34; Eze. 36:25-27). The New Testament likewise declares both divine forgiveness (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14) and transformation (II Thess. 2:13; Titus 3:5) to be part of the Biblical process of salvation, a process repeatedly declared to be conditional on Spirit-empowered obedience to the divine requirements (Matt. 7:21; 19:16-26; Luke 10:25-28; Rom. 2:6-10,13; 8:13; Heb. 5:9; 11:1-40).

In sum, the author in question is correct to dispute the perception of many Jews during the New Testament age (and at other times also) that their standing as God’s chosen people was “unconditional.” But the author is wrong in implying that the global summons of the gospel was something new in the days of Paul and the apostles, or that belonging to the faith community is conditional solely on being “justified if [people] place their faith in Jesus” [9]. Justification through faith in Jesus is most assuredly an imperative feature of Biblical salvation (Rom. 3:24; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14), but so are regeneration and sanctification through God’s transforming Spirit (II Thess. 2:13; Titus 3:5).

The Sabbath

The author writes:

The observance of the seventh-day Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening was a distinctive part of the Hebrew faith—a very conspicuous sacred cow [10].

But the Bible is clear that the seventh-day Sabbath antedated by many centuries the establishment of the Hebrew nation, originating as a memorial of God’s perfect creation prior to the entrance of sin (Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 20:11). This sets the Sabbath entirely apart from the other Old Testament holy days with which it is often mistakenly associated. Jesus understood the application of the Sabbath to the entire human family when He declared that “the Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27). By contrast, we don’t read anywhere in Scripture that such regular Hebrew observances as the Passover, the feast of Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, or the feast of tabernacles were “made for man.”

While disputing the binding claims of the seventh-day Sabbath has become increasingly popular among former Adventists, it is nowhere near as popular as attacks on such tenets as the investigative judgment, the Spirit of Prophecy, and the remnant church theology—at least among those still professing to be members of the church. Perhaps this is because of the deeply-ingrained experience of Sabbath-keeping in the Seventh-day Adventist subculture, much of which is positively remembered even by those with a less-than-favorable outlook regarding any number of the church’s classic teachings. Thus, assuming (as was stated at the beginning) that the author in question is still an Adventist, his perspective regarding the Sabbath and its claims on the Christian conscience is not vocalized nearly as often, even among very liberal church members, as challenges directed at other of our distinctive doctrines.

The author in question follows the playbook of many non- and a great many ex-Adventists in using the following verse in Romans 14 as evidence that Sabbath observance is no longer required of the Christian: “One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (verse 5).

But the overwhelming weight of Biblical evidence points toward an understanding of the above passage very much in sync with Colossians 2:14-17, which describes the “sabbath days” regarding which the judgment of fellow believers is disallowed to the Christian as those “which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ” (verse 17; see also Lev. 23). Similar language is used in both Romans 14 and Colossians 2, forbidding judgment regarding observances which no longer bind the Christian conscience, though the latter chapter is more explicit regarding these rites being a shadow of the coming Savior. The book of Hebrews, using language nearly identical to what is found in Colossians, likewise depicts those observances which the apostle calls “a shadow of good things to come” as referring to the sacrificial offerings which ended with the death of Christ:

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect (Heb. 10:1).

The seventh-day Sabbath, by contrast, is not a shadow of anything, but rather, a memorial of a world once perfect. By contrast, the Levitical holy days and the foods appropriate to eat and not eat thereon were part of the now-obsolete ceremonial law, whose rituals pointed forward to the coming Messiah. The Ten Commandments, of which the Sabbath is one, constitute the divine standard of final judgment (James 2:10-12). Just as the Sabbath originated at the initial creation of this world (Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 20:11), so it will be observed in “the new heavens and the new earth” (Isa. 66:22), when “all flesh shall come to worship” before the God of the universe (verse 23). From one perfect world to the next, the seventh day stands as an everlasting memorial of God’s creative and redemptive power (Gen. 2:1-3; Eze. 20:12,20).

Food Taboos

The author in question concludes his article with an attack on the distinction between clean and unclean food, declaring this distinction no longer valid for the Christian. He writes:

Adherence to certain food taboos was another conspicuous sacred cow in Hebrew culture, particularly outlined in Deuteronomy 14:3-21.

Once again, Paul is broad-minded on this matter. No food is intrinsically unclean, he categorically maintains (Rom. 14:14,20) [11].

But like the laws of Moses relating to the disposal of body waste (Deut. 23:12-14), the laws relating to clean and unclean meats give every evidence of being sanitary, not ceremonial (Lev. 11; Deut. 14:3-21). Like the Sabbath, the distinction between clean and unclean meats pre-dates Moses by many centuries, going back to the time of Noah’s Flood (Gen. 7:8). With but a few exceptions, the animals declared to be unclean in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are scavengers and carnivores, obviously unfit for human consumption because of the food they themselves consume.

Moreover, the Old Testament prohibition on the use of flesh meat containing blood (Gen. 9:4) is explicitly repeated in the New Testament, when the Council of Jerusalem commanded Gentile believers to abstain “from things strangled, and from blood” (Acts 15:20,29).

The call to physical health is an imperative of the gospel (III John 2; Prov. 23:2; Luke 21:34), and the fulfillment of the Jewish ceremonial law at Calvary doesn’t change that. Far from making obsolete the necessity of physical vigor, the Biblical gospel provides power for the attainment of such vigor. While the apostle Paul declares that “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace” (Rom. 14:17), the same author states elsewhere that “whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (I Cor. 10:31).

Conclusion

Responding to attacks on our faith may seem unnecessary and redundant to some, but for the sake of the young, the curious, and the doubtful, these responses must be offered whenever these challenges are renewed. The pillar doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist faith remain thoroughly Biblical, and this fact merits repetition as often as possible. One more Adventist, or former Adventist, raising objections to these doctrines offers yet another reason for constant vigilance in the defense of our faith on the part of the striving faithful among us.

REFERENCES

1. Milton Hook, “The Sacred Cows of the Hebrew Faith, and How Paul Sets Them Aside,” Adventist Today, June 4, 2024 https://atoday.org/the-seven-sacred-cows-of-romans/

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan