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My wife, as I have said before, is still an Adventist. One Saturday, she returned from church and quoted her pastor as saying something like, “
We Adventists have the law, but we have added Jesus to the law.” This may or may not be an exact quote, but the sense of it is absolutely true.

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Adventists still teach, preach, and live the law of Moses, well, at least partially. They keep the Sabbath, a part of the Mosaic law; they speak against eating unclean meats.

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In the past fifty years or so, a general movement within the denomination is to emphasize love and to speak more about the grace Jesus. .”

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It is my impression, looking in from my now outside position, is that grace and Jesus are being superimposed on top of the Mosaic law. The words of Ida’s pastor are, therefore, a reflection of current church trends.

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Law, however, is opposed to grace and grace to law. Paul says in Romans 6:14: “Sin shall not have mastery over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. “He could not have put it much more clearly than that. If under law, then sin has mastery. If under grace, then sin cannot master. John says in chapter one of his gospel. “The law came through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus.” Again, the contrast, negating law and supporting grace only. I don’t intend to share all the scriptures which contrast and define the relationship between the two antagonistic ways of viewing our relationship with father.

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OK, just two more which popped into my consciousness. Romans 14:5-10 speaks of not judging anyone else by what day they keep. At first glance, it might be construed as only referring to judging another. But it is clear from the text itself, that Paul is telling the Romans not to just about what day is being kept sacred: one or another or no day at all. If we are not to judge in such matters, then it matters not which day or no day on which we worship. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to what to eat. Again, no stipulation is placed by him on what we eat, whether offered first to idols or not or whether it is clean or unclean. OK, that’s enough to say that the Mosaic law is not to be imposed on the Christian believer. In another post, I’ll talk about the law of faith and grace, but, for now, will let it rest and just say that we are under no obligation to keep any part of the Mosaic law, whether chiseled in stone or written on papyrus.

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Our relationship with Father is entirely by grace, through the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 2:1-10.

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