I am in the final stages of editing a book called Conversations About God. The title not only reflects the book’s content, but also its origin in a series of twenty programs by that name presented at the Loma Linda University Church in 1984. In that memorable series, Dr. A. Graham Maxwell opened each evening’s topic with a presentation, followed by questions and comments from the audience, moderated by then-pastor Louis Venden. The book will be an edited version of the original “conversations.” I have sought to preserve the flavor of the original conversations as much as possible; guided by Graham’s daughter, Audrey Zinke, and his close friend Cherie Kirk. The manuscript is also being enthusiastically examined by Pastor Venden. The words that follow here are from the introductory summary by Graham Maxwell.
These conversations offer another look at our heavenly Father in the larger setting of a universe-wide conflict over His character and government. God is infinite in majesty and power. Yet, when He came in human form, He didn’t try to intimidate or overwhelm people with a show of majesty and power. Instead, He sat down among them. He conversed with them. He even invited their questions. As a matter of fact, Jesus taught some of His most important truths while reclining at tables, eating supper with His audiences.
As indicated in the title of this book, these twenty conversations are primarily about God. But one could fairly raise the question, whose God are we talking about? God is not the exclusive property of any particular denomination. For example, the Methodists and the Baptists worshiped God before Seventh-day Adventists came on the scene. The Lutherans were worshiping God before the Methodists and Baptists came on the scene. The Jews were worshipping God centuries before there were any Christians. Adam and Eve were worshipping God before there were any Jews. And before there were any people on our planet, God’s loyal angels worshiped Him throughout the universe.
God belongs to all of us. While there are religious differences among us, and those differences may be important, we are all members of His family. Or should we rather say that only the good ones among us are members of God’s family? Is that the way you count your children? Will you report today that you have only one child; while tomorrow you may report three? And the next day only two? Do you only acknowledge the children who are behaving well? Frankly, we have all misbehaved. And yet God recognizes every one of us, counts every one of us as members of His family. It is this amazing, gracious God that is the subject of this book. And “conversations” like this are needed today and will continue to be needed. Even eternity will not be long to enough to fully understand and celebrate our God.
Lou: When we talk about the seventh day, we’re talking about thousands of years, and the question has been asked, “How do you know what day is the seventh day? Could we be mistaken?”
Graham: One thing is for sure, nothing has meant more to a devout Jew than the seventh-day Sabbath. Jews can certainly look back to when the manna fell, double on Friday and none on Saturday. When that happened, everyone knew that was the seventh day—by God’s direction. And no devout Jew has lost track of the weekly Sabbath since that time. I would say that’s not debatable. We definitely know.
Lou: Jesus didn’t seem confused about it when He was here, either, and even the idea of Sunday as a day of resurrection would confirm the consistency of the weekly cycle.
Now the Sabbath command says, “Thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy manservant. . .” and so forth (Exod 20:10). Is the Sabbath a day to just sit in a rocking chair in total idleness? What is the meaning of the phrase “Thou shalt not do any work?”
Graham: I’m curious that God would say, “In it thou shalt not do any work,” yet not tell us what work is. I take that as a compliment. God says, “The day is yours. I have suggested its many meanings. Just to sit there under duress and do nothing all day is not keeping the Sabbath. It’s supposed to be a delight.” And so God leaves it up to us to decide what work is. But many devout people through the years have consulted their theologians to determine what work is. In fact, I have a very large volume which describes Sabbath work. This book, called the Mishnah, says, “There are forty kinds of work save one.”
There are thirty-nine kinds of work, in other words, and each of the thirty-nine is broken down into many sub-categories. How far may you walk on the Sabbath? May you carry a pencil on the Sabbath? How many letters can you write on the Sabbath? I don’t mean epistles, I mean letters of the alphabet, all spelled out. The beauty of that system is, you always know whether you’re keeping the Sabbath or not. On the other hand, those rules also leave you fearful that you may have broken the Sabbath. That is why Jesus said, “You have placed burdens on people that are too heavy to bear.” The God of the Sabbath intended it for us to remember Him. But just how to do that is left up to us, and I like that.
Lou: A “Dear Abby” column once responded to a girl who wrote in saying she was going to marry a Seventh-day Adventist, and she wondered what that might mean. Abby suggested that she ought to talk to the man’s pastor and find out. But then another person wrote in and said, “I know about Seventh-day Adventists. If you marry a Seventh-day Adventist, there a whole lot of things you won’t be able to do.” Among these, the person suggested that the girl and her husband would never have any kind of marital relationship on the Sabbath. Some think Isaiah 58 says you shouldn’t do anything that’s your own pleasure on the Sabbath. Is God wanting us to be unhappy on the Sabbath?
Graham: When I heard about that column, I did a little research on the meaning of Isaiah 58:13. It really reads, “If you restrain your foot on the Sabbath from doing your business on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath delightful and Yahweh’s holy day honorable, if you honor it by refraining from business, from pursuing gain and from excessive talk then you will delight in Yahweh, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth” (The Anchor Bible).
Many other versions agree that the word “pleasure” is better translated “business.” You are invited on the Sabbath to enjoy yourself all you like, but don’t do your own business on that day. You don’t pursue your own interests on that day. It even says, “Value My holy day and honor it by not traveling, working or talking idly on that day.” Or as The Jerusalem Bible puts it, “Abstaining from travel, from doing business and from gossip.” But the main point there is, “Call the Sabbath a delight.” We’re supposed to enjoy the day, rather than pursue our own business or our own worldly gain on that day.
Lou: How can you command someone to “call the Sabbath a delight?”
Graham: Now we know from experience you can’t do that. When your girls were growing up, did you ever say to one of them, “Now look, don’t make any more faces. I want you to eat your spinach?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Yes, but I want you to enjoy it.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“I want you to tell me how delicious it is.”
“Daddy, I’d be fibbing if I did, and I’d be breaking one of the commandments.”
There’s no way you can order somebody to enjoy something. But consider the things that God desires the most: Love? You can’t command it. Trust? You can’t command it. The enjoyment of the Sabbath? You can’t command it. It’s an invitation. We either do it or we don’t, and if we really observe the day, we do it in the highest sense of freedom and it is truly a delight.
Lou: Here’s another question: “In Colossians 2 doesn’t Paul say that the Sabbath has been nailed to the cross? And in light of that, doesn’t Paul say that no one should judge you regarding religious festivals or even a Sabbath day?” What about that Colossians 2?
Graham: That question is important enough for a whole chapter, but I’ll try to deal with the basics in a paragraph or two. I think first we need to note just what it was that was nailed to the cross. The King James Version says it was “the handwriting of ordinances” (Col 2:14). Many take that to be the Law. But the first key word is literally “hand writing” (Greek: cheirographon), a word compound combining “hand” and “writing.” The second is “requirements” (Greek: dogmasin). The phrase “handwritten document of requirements” is a technical term for a legal obligation. The “document” contains the sentence that stood against us because of rebellion and sin. That is what was nailed to the cross.
When people read this text to suggest that the Sabbath was nailed to the cross, that reading creates a serious difficulty. You see, whatever the “handwritten document of requirements” is, the text says it was “contrary” (Greek: hupenantion) or “hostile to us” (Col 2:14, KJV). In other words, Jesus took it out of the way because it was bad for us. But nowhere in the Bible is the Sabbath pictured as against us, or bad for us. Rather, it was given to help us. Did Jesus say, “The Sabbath was made for you, but in a short while I’m going to nail it to the cross because it’s been against you?” No, the Sabbath was made for our sake (Mark 2:27, Greek: dia ton anthrôpon). So some interpreters have been nailing the wrong thing to the cross! Rather, when Jesus died He took care of the sin problem. He took care of the sentence against us, or whatever word you want to use there. And I think when Paul says “Don’t let anyone judge you with respect to the Sabbath, either” (Col 2:16), he was saying, “You’re right. Don’t you go around condemning people who disagree with you on the Sabbath.”
Sometimes we say that Paul is talking about ceremonial Sabbaths in Colossians 2. In that case he would be saying, “Don’t criticize people when they disagree on the ceremonial laws. But when they disagree with you on the seventh day, you can go condemn them all you want to.” Paul did not want us to condemn anybody for anything. That’s not our business. His message was the same in Romans 14: “One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind” (Rom 14:5, RSV). . . . Why do you pass judgment on your brother?” (Rom 14:10, RSV). I include the seventh-day Sabbath in that. We are in no position ever to criticize or condemn anyone who disagrees over this matter of the Sabbath. “No,” Paul says, “Each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom 14:12, RSV).
So going back to Colossians, something that was against us was nailed to the cross. And once we understand how God has handled this problem of distrust in the universe, we won’t go around condemning other people. But in my own heart I’m very much persuaded that the Sabbath is for me. I wouldn’t want to waste it. I hope I can make it look good to other people so they won’t waste it either. We should present it as a gift, not as an obligation.
Lou: Graham, some of our friends of other faiths see Sabbath-keeping as legalistic. When you’re concerned about sundowns and what is appropriate to do on the Sabbath, aren’t you back into a kind of bondage, where you’re so careful about these things? Isn’t that legalism?
Graham: That word “legalism” needs to be defined, and in Chapter Twelve we’ll have more to say about it. But to me, the essence of legalism is preoccupation with one’s legal standing with God. Many of the same people who think Sabbath keepers are legalistic are themselves utterly concerned with their legal standing before God. They thank God that His Son came and paid the penalty so that they could be in good legal standing. It seems to me that if you have a legal model, you’re a legalist, whether or not you observe the Sabbath. But in the larger view, you’re saying, “God, I don’t want to miss out on a thing You have given me.” The Sabbath is a gift that points us to so many of God’s acts of blessing. We keep the Sabbath as a blessing, not as a burden.
Lou: It makes so much difference whether a person is keeping the Sabbath as a requirement or keeping it as a celebration of the glorious things that the Sabbath stands for.
Graham: Yes, it’s supposed to be all about freedom. If in the middle of church a person does not feel free, maybe he should walk out, take a breath of fresh air and decide whether he wants to come back in or not. Nobody should be sitting in church because he has to. Everybody should be in church because they feel good about it.
Lou: You might lose your audience if they did that. What if some children hear about that comment and decide not to go to church anymore?
Graham: Well, that’s a different story. It makes me think of the next chapter, “God’s Emergency Measures.” You can’t expect little children to understand these things. For example, they won’t brush their teeth because it’s good to brush their teeth. They brush their teeth because Mommy says so. They don’t want to upset Mommy. She might take “emergency measures.” Our little children might not gladly follow us to church. But while you want to preserve their freedom, when it becomes time to go to church you say, “Billy, we’re leaving, and you’re coming, too.” So there are children who sit in the pews under some duress. But you hope they’ll sit there long enough to hear the pastor tell them that God values nothing higher than their freedom, and you hope that one day they’ll choose to continue on their own.
In the original lecture series done in 1984 at the Loma Linda University Church, Graham Maxwell spoke for about a half hour each Friday night followed by written questions and answers from Lou Venden and also from the audience. The next several posts contain questions and answers from the tenth presentation, “The Reminder of the Evidence.”
Lou: You’ve laid a great deal of emphasis upon the fact that you don’t see the Sabbath as arbitrary, something imposed as a kind of test. And you’ve certainly provided a great deal of meaning to the Sabbath. But I’ve heard people raise this question: All of that may be true, but if so, why couldn’t one keep the Sabbath on another day? Does it really matter? Everyone agrees that nine of the commandments are important because if you really love God and your fellow human beings, that’s the way you’re going to act. But why the seventh day in particular?”
Graham: The word arbitrary suggests that there is no reason, that God ordered it just because He wanted to, just to show His authority. I would say if it really were arbitrary, it could be any day. But it’s the seventh day because it’s so loaded with reasons. Did you ever try on Marjorie (Lou’s wife), “It doesn’t matter when we celebrate our anniversary this year, why don’t we have it some other day?” I don’t think she’d go for it.
On top of that the Bible adds meaning after meaning and reason after reason for the seventh day, which makes it less and less arbitrary. It seems to me that no other of God’s commands is associated with so many meanings. It is the least arbitrary of them all. What bothers me most about considering it as arbitrary is the thought that if it is arbitrary, the only reason why we keep it is to prove that we are God’s good people. We are the only ones who obey. Whereas I understand the purpose of the Sabbath is to say something about Him. But those who keep the Sabbath as meeting an arbitrary requirement are simply saying to the world, “Look, there aren’t many in the world who are good, but we keep the seventh day. The seventh day is not to say something about us. It is to say something about God. So that is an important difference.
Lou: So the meaning inherent in the seventh day makes that the Sabbath day?
Graham: Yes, because He chose to create the world the way He did. Now He did make a decision to do it slowly, but I think to do it slowly is not arbitrary. The universe was watching. The charges had to be met. And God in His own good time and in that very dramatic way unfolded His plans for our world. And every day was saying more of the truth about Him, and the falsity of Satan’s charges. That was a dramatic week!
Lou: I can hear one of our friends asking, “In the light of all this, do I have to keep the Sabbath to be saved? If I don’t keep the Sabbath, am I going to be lost?
Graham: Ah, that reflects on our discussion earlier of what sin is (Chapter Two). If you think of sin as just breaking the rules, then one might follow that line of thought: If I break that rule, I’ll be lost. It all depends whether there is a distrust and a rebelliousness involved in a failure to keep the Sabbath. I think, rather, the Sabbath was made to be a great benefit to us. If I don’t observe it, I lose. If I don’t take my medicine, I lose. God offers it to us. There are some who have never heard of it. I don’t think the thief on the cross ever kept one. But in the legal model, if you violate that rule like any other, then you’re out, because sin is a breaking of the rules. But in my view, sin is internal distrust, rebelliousness and unwillingness to listen. If the gift God has given us inspires a hostility within you, a rebelliousness within you, an unwillingness to listen, that would be a serious thing.
Lou: Because that’s where the problem began.
Graham: Exactly.
The Sabbath has answered the basic questions of thoughtful people through the years. Questions such as: Where have we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go in the future? And above all, what kind of a Person is our God, and what does He want of His children? The Sabbath all through the years has answered those four questions. Where have we come from? We were made in the image of God at Creation. Why are we here? How do we attain to the greatest good in life? Our whole purpose in the present is restoration of the damage done by sin, through faith in God. The Sabbath encourages us to rest from our futile striving to heal ourselves. Instead, all good things will come to those who trust God. And where do we go in the future? The Sabbath has always pointed forward to the second coming and the earth made new. And what about our God? Every Sabbath we are reminded that God is just like Christ our Creator, for Christ is God.
Is there any information Satan would like to hide more than this? No surprise then, that Satan seeks to confuse the meaning of the Sabbath day. Notice Moffatt’s rendering of that Exodus 20:12 text: “I gave them my Sabbath to mark the tie between me and them, to teach them that it is I the Eternal, who sets them apart.” Most of the world has broken that tie. The last message of God to the world is the restoration of that tie. It’s a message of love and trust.
Keeping the Sabbath is not legalism: It is not God saying “If you don’t keep this day, I will kill you.” Rather, whenever we preach Christ as our Creator, our Saviour, and the One who is coming again, whenever we preach that God is like His Son, we are preaching the message of the seventh day. According to the sixty-sixth book, the world will be divided into two sides at the very end. Revelation 13 speaks of Satan’s final campaign, and that the whole world will be worshiping him, except the few described in Revelation 14:12: “This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus” (GNB). In that day, the intelligent, wholehearted observance of the seventh-day Sabbath will represent this very faithfulness and loyalty to Jesus. There will be a group who still worship Jesus as their Creator and their God.
Notice that the Sabbath is really not about us. It is about God. I like to think that is why we put it in our name: Seventh-day Adventists. We didn’t put it in there to say something good about us, but to say that we have taken a position about God. I believe a real Seventh-day Adventist is a Christian who accepts and believes all that the Sabbath has to say about our God. I wish it always meant that.
Someday God will recreate our world and give it to His trusting saints. We know that the world as we know it has to be purified by fire: “The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10, KJV). A burned up earth would be no place to live, so after that there will be a re-creation: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Rev 21:1, RSV). And Isaiah adds: “Behold I will create new heavens and a new earth” (Isa 65:17, NIV).
How do you think God will create our world the next time? He, of course, could do it in an instant, as He could have during creation week. But patient Teacher that He is, is it possible that He might do it in days one, two, three, four, five, and six again? Just to say something to saints that have questions about that simple Genesis account. I can see Him doing it like that and smiling the whole week. But there will be one difference between the creation and the re-creation. There will be no need to create another Adam and Eve. He will just open the pearly gates and welcome His children home.
Isaiah describes how in the new earth we will be delighted to meet and worship our God. Isaiah 66:23: “Month by month at the new moon, week by week on the Sabbath, all mankind shall come to bow down before me, says the Lord” (NEB). If on the first Sabbath in the new earth, God should say, “Children, would you like to join with me in celebrating? I’d like to keep this first Sabbath as the most special one we have ever had.” Would you say, “Oh, no! There we go—back under the law again. Why do you need to put an arbitrary test of our obedience upon us? Haven’t we proved that we can be trusted? How could you talk about the Sabbath still?”
Would you say that to God? Think of all there would be to remember. Can you imagine the first twenty-four hour Sabbath in the new earth? What a celebration! And if at the end of that first happy Sabbath, God would say “I have enjoyed this so much, I would like to do this again every week from here on,” would you say, “Well, one is surely enough. Do we have to do it again and again?” No, Isaiah says it will be our delight to meet and celebrate with God.
Summing up. Is Sabbath-keeping arbitrary legalism? It can be. And it was on that sad Friday 1900 years ago. But as God designed it, it is supposed to be a monument to freedom. It is supposed to remind us of the evidence; that infinitely costly evidence, that God is not the kind of person His enemies have made Him out to be. He is not arbitrary, exacting, vengeful, unforgiving and severe. He gave us the Sabbath to remind us of that everlasting truth. He designed it to be a day of freedom, peace, love and trust. But most of all, it is a day to remember and be with our God.
As you read through the sixty-six books, the meaning of the Sabbath is repeated and enlarged. For example, at Sinai, in the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath is connected with creation (Exod 20:11). Then when you read on, John and Paul make it plain that the One who created us, was none other than Jesus Christ. John wrote: “Through Him, all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3, NIV). Combine that with Paul’s comment in Colossians 1:16:
“For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him” (NIV).
Think of the significance of that. The One who came to save us is the One who made us in the beginning. And who would know better how to heal the damage done by sin? The gentle Jesus who walked so softly among men and then died the way He did on Calvary, is not some weak person. He is the supreme all-powerful Creator of the whole vast universe. That’s the One who died on Calvary. Nor did God send some subordinate person; not even the leader of His angels. The Creator Himself, the One who is equal with God, came, for He actually is God (John 1:1).
Every time we observe the seventh-day Sabbath we are publicly acknowledging to God, to our friends, and to ourselves, that we have faith in Jesus as our Saviour, our Creator, and our God. So when you raise the question about what kind of person our God is, the reply comes every Sabbath. God the Father is just as gracious as the Son is. If Christ is Creator God, and we want to know what our God is like, all we have to do is look at Christ. In pointing to Jesus and creation, every Sabbath reminds us also of what the Father is like.
There are other ways in which the Sabbath helps strengthen our faith. God Himself speaks in Exodus 31:13: “Keep the Sabbath, my day of rest, because it is a sign between you and me for all time to come, to show that I, the Lord, have made you my own people” (GNB). And in Ezekiel 20:20 He says: “Make the Sabbath a holy day, so that it will be a sign of the covenant we made, and will remind you that I am the Lord your God” (GNB). In Ezekiel 20:12 He also says: “I made the keeping of the Sabbath a sign of the agreement between us, to remind them that I, the Lord, make them holy” (GNB).
Note that the Sabbath is a reminder of a very important truth about the Lord our God and His relationship with His people. His people are an unholy, sinful bunch! Yet God is saying to them, “I have not abandoned you. I am still working to save and heal you. I still regard you as my people.” Salvation is not merely forgiveness, but also the healing of the damage done, making us holy people. Some of us, therefore, keep the seventh day Sabbath to show that only the Creator can heal the damage done. Only the One who made us in the beginning could restore us to what we used to be. He has the creative power, and it requires creative power. Surely it’s no less a miracle to take damaged merchandise and restore it than to create it perfectly in the beginning! That is why when David prayed in Psalm 51:10, he said: “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (KJV). The very same creative power is necessary now to make us trustworthy, holy children of God. Now, we cannot do this by ourselves. Some try by self-discipline and restraint. But it is only by faith and trust in our Creator that all the damage can be perfectly restored.
There are other aspects of the Sabbath mentioned in the Bible. When Moses repeated the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy, he gave a different reason for keeping the Sabbath than the one he gave in Exodus.
“Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for that reason the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day” (Deut 5:15, NEB).
Now that’s no contradiction or lapse of memory on the part of the elderly leader. The Sabbath is about God. He created us free in the beginning. But when we lost our freedom, He used His creative power to set us free again. Note that the Sabbath is always connected with freedom.
There is another aspect of the Sabbath mentioned in Hebrews 4. The Sabbath there is described as a type and a foretaste of the rest to come. The apostle says that when Israel entered Canaan, they physically entered the Promised Land, but they certainly didn’t enter God’s rest; because they didn’t trust Him. “There remains, therefore, a Sabbath-like rest to the people of God” (based on Heb 4:9). That is, if we have been led to really trust God, we begin to enter into that Sabbath-like rest now. But certainly in the earth made new, we will know completely what that Sabbath-like rest is all about. “So there must still be a promised Sabbath of Rest for God’s people” (Heb 4:9). That was Goodspeed’s translation. But look at the one in The Jerusalem Bible: “There must still be, therefore, a place of rest reserved for God’s people, the seventh-day rest.”
God waited thousands of years to definitively answer the question whether sin truly leads naturally to death. Finally, in the fullness of time, God sacrificed Himself in the Son, to demonstrate the truthfulness of His word. He did not ask us to prove the truthfulness of His word. He could have, by leaving us to die. Instead, He Himself came and died that awful death. And Jesus knew why He was dying. He saw it all in the larger context of the great controversy. He knew about Satan’s charges. So as He died, He said “It is finished” (John 19:30, KJV). Just as God, at the end of creation week, said “I’ve finished the work of creation” (Gen 2:2-3).
When Jesus died on the cross, then, He was saying, “We finished it all.” The most important answer to the most devastating accusation had been given at infinite cost. But what exactly was finished? Look at John 17:4: “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (NKJV). His work was to reveal the character of God to angels and to men (John 1:18; 12:31-32; 14:6-9; 15:10). On Friday evening, when Jesus died at the end of crucifixion week, all the major questions in the great controversy had been answered and all of Satan’s charges against God had been met. And how significant it is that the next day was the seventh-day Sabbath. Jesus could have gone to heaven on Friday to hear the universe tell Him that it was more than enough; everything was clear. Instead He waited over the Sabbath hours.
Can you imagine what the universe was doing during those Sabbath hours? Surely the whole universe paused to reflect on the significance of what they had seen. They joined with the Father in celebrating the costly victory that had been won, and in thanking Him for the costly evidence that had been presented. Because of the cross, they knew that the universe was secure for eternity. As I understand it, this is the Sabbath God asks us to remember. We need to pause and be reminded of those truths in which the angels rejoice. This is certainly no mere test of our obedience. Caught up in the great controversy as we are, we need the message of the seventh day. Surely that is what Jesus meant when He said “The Sabbath was made for the good of man” (Mark 2:27, GNB). So were all of God’s laws!
Now when we read that first angel’s message to “worship the Creator of heaven and earth. The Creator of the sea and springs,” we are reminded that the first mention of the Sabbath comes in the Bible at the end of creation week. Think back in imagination to the very dramatic events of that first week of this earth’s history. The war had begun already in heaven. Satan had already leveled his charges and his accusations. One third of the angels had already agreed with him that God is not worthy of our love and our trust.
Right in the middle of that devastating crisis, God invites His family to watch Him as He creates yet another world—this time, ours. How easily He could have created our world with a snap of His fingers, in just an instant of time. But in the dramatic and significant setting of the great controversy, He chose instead to do it in six twenty-four hour days. On the first day, all He said was “Let there be light.” That’s all. And then on days two, three, four, and five, God in unhurried majesty and drama unfolded His plans for our earth. By the sixth day, what a beautiful place this was! Where now were Satan’s charges that God was selfish?
The most unselfish of God’s gifts in creation was freedom. He created us in His own image with power to think and to do. And we know from human history that He created us free to either love and trust Him, or hate Him and spit in His face, because both of them have, in fact, happened. He created us able to do it! God even allowed Satan to approach our first parents at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And He didn’t hide that tree in some dark corner of the garden; He put it right in the middle near the Tree of Life, so that Adam and Eve would see it every time they came to that other tree. “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9, NIV).
Now the God we know could be trusted not to allow our first inexperienced parents to be tested more than they were able to resist. You know He would not do that. And so Satan was only allowed to approach them at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were warned not to risk a confrontation with their wily foe. In that warning God was already demonstrating the meaning of that famous key text, 1 Corinthians 10:13: “But God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm” (GNB). Paul could have said instead, “God can be trusted. . . ,” that’s what God keeping His promises is all about.
You see, that tree was not put there as an arbitrary test of obedience. That tree was put there to help them, to protect them. What is not directly stated in Genesis is that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not placed there before sin, but after sin. The war had already begun. The Enemy was already on the loose. If the tree had been placed in the garden before sin, it would have been an arbitrary test. But coming after sin, it was there to help them and protect them like every other one of God’s gracious laws. Then God stunned the universe by sharing with us some of His own marvelous creative power. God so designed it that when a man and a woman come together in love, they are able to share life with little people; to create little people in their own image.
Isn’t it interesting to watch our children and our grandchildren? They look so much like us. They behave like us, at our best points and at our worst points. Truly, they do reflect our image and God designed it to be this way. You may recall God’s words in Genesis 1:28: “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control” (GNB). That was His original plan. The Song of Solomon right in the middle of the Bible reminds us that this whole thing was God’s idea. That we should be male and female and feel the way we do about each other, and say the things we do to each other, and come together in love, and create little people in our own image. He thought that all up Himself.
He could have created us to look like E.T. or maybe little green people with antennae. And babies could have come in test tubes. But that is not the way that God designed it. That worries some people. “What kind of a God must He be to think it up this way?” And then to put a whole book in the middle of the Bible that confuses some people and delights others? Think what The Song of Solomon says about our God; reminding us of the original creation week and of the Sabbath that came at the end of it. The universe watched all this, the universe that had heard the charges against God. And when creation was over, they said “That’s very good.” Love and admiration for God must have known no bounds. Where now were Satan’s charges that God does not respect the freedom of His creatures? Or that He’s very selfish in His use of authority and power?
The climax of the creation story comes in Genesis 2:2, 3:
On the sixth day God completed all the work he had been doing, and on the seventh day he ceased. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he ceased from all the work he had set himself to do (NEB).
When the text tells us that God “rested,” it does not mean that He was tired. It was more like an attorney saying, “I have presented all my evidence. I now ‘rest’ my case.” God ceased from all His work. Can you imagine how the universe spent the next twenty-four hours as they celebrated with God the first seventh-day Sabbath?
Now this Sabbath was not Adam and Eve’s seventh day. It was their second day. And if the Sabbath were designed to give us a rest every seventh day since our creation, we should be observing Thursday. The first Sabbath was God’s day of celebration. He called on His family throughout the universe to join with Him in reflecting on the significance of what had been done; the answers He had given to Satan’s charges, the falsity of Satan’s accusations, and the truth about freedom, love, and generosity on the part of our gracious Heavenly Father.
You see, the Sabbath was given after sin, not before. If it was given before, we might think of it as an arbitrary test of our obedience. But it was given after sin, because we needed it. It must have seemed to the universe looking on that the great controversy had been won that Friday night. But no event of creation week had answered Satan’s most serious charge, the charge that God had lied to His children when He warned that the consequence of sin is death. Nothing during creation week, eloquent as it was, spoke to that issue.
This blog begins chapter ten of the book in process Conversations About God. It originated as a series of lectures by Graham Maxwell in 1984. After each lecture Maxwell took written questions from the audience mediated through the pastor of the Loma Linda University Church at the time, Lou Venden. This marvelous series has never been put into book form, so I am attempting to do so and sharing the results in progress here with permission from the Maxwell family. The words that follow are Maxwell’s oral presentation, edited by me.
This is the tenth chapter in a series of conversations about God; looking at our Heavenly Father in the larger setting of the great controversy over His character and government. The subject for our conversation this time is “The Reminder of The Evidence.” The title was chosen to suggest the important meaning and purpose of yet another of God’s provisions to help us during this crisis of distrust.
Unfortunately, the Sabbath has been widely misunderstood in a way that supports Satan’s charges that God is arbitrary, exacting, and severe. Even among devout observers of the seventh day, the Sabbath has often been misrepresented, as was the case on that very sad Friday 1900 years ago. But if we put the Sabbath in the setting of all sixty-six Bible books and in the larger setting of the great controversy over the character and government of God, I believe that all arbitrariness evaporates.
The best known biblical statement about the Sabbath is in Exodus 20, right in the middle of the Ten Commandments. The commandment runs from verse 8 to verse 11, but we will emphasize two portions of the passage:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it (Exod 20:8, 11, RSV).
It is significant to note that in the New Testament, James called the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) the “royal law of liberty” (Jam 1:25; 2:12). Not the “royal law of subjugation, surrender, and bondage,” but the “royal law of freedom.” Yet a first reading of this particular commandment could seem somewhat arbitrary, couldn’t it? Is God laying upon His children an arbitrary requirement, just to show His authority and test their willingness to obey? But the message of all sixty-six books, and certainly of these conversations about God, is that there is no arbitrariness in our God. Rather He paid a high price to deny any trace of arbitrariness! We’ll come back to this larger theme in the later chapters entitled “God’s Law Is no Threat to Our Freedom” (Chapter Twelve) and “God’s Emergency Measures” (Chapter Eleven).
God’s laws were not given to be a burden or to restrict us. They were given to help us, to protect us in the days of our ignorance and immaturity, and to lead us back to trust and freedom. God values nothing higher than our freedom. When you go through all the sixty-six books and you come to the last one, the book of Revelation, you note that God is still asking us to remember Him as our Creator. The first angel of Revelation 14 says: “Honor God and give him glory, for his time has come to sit in judgment. Worship the Creator of heaven and earth. The Creator of the sea and the springs” (Rev 14:7, NAB). Note how this excellent Catholic translation renders the opening phrase “honor God” instead of “fear God.”
Lou: All right, another question. “You mentioned that Jesus’ death was the results of sin. Was His death not also the wages of sin? If Jesus died the second death (the wages of sin) how was it that He could be raised from the second death from which there is no resurrection?”
Graham: In this one question are represented two understandings of what went wrong in the universe. Are we in legal trouble, or are we in real trouble? The “results” suggest real trouble. That calls for healing more than just an adjustment of our legal standing. But we could use “wages” either way and “results” either way. So we need to keep going back to our understanding of what went wrong in God’s universe. Our understanding of what went wrong helps us understand what it takes to set it right and keep it right.
Now if Jesus had died the second death legally, and if the second death meant you never rise again, He should still be in the tomb. When He returned to heaven and asked, “Was it enough? Have I answered your questions?” The angels should have said, “You get right back down. You’ve got to pay this penalty for eternity.” Since that didn’t happen, the angels must not have been looking for a legal payment. They were looking for answers, and when they got them, they were satisfied.
Lou: This question ties right into that. “Did Jesus die the first death or the second death for us?”
Graham: The first death is the death from which there is a resurrection. Thousands of people have been crucified. If Jesus had only been crucified, it would have been the first death. But He died the awful death of being given up. God’s wrath was poured out on Him, God giving Him up like He will give up rebels in the end. He was made to be sin though He knew no sin (2 Cor 5:21). But everything that happened on the cross was answering the questions. “Does sin result in death?” Yes. Is it torture at the hand of God? No. Who did torture Him? Those who served God from fear did it. And once these questions were answered, why stay in the tomb? He did stay over Sabbath to add still more significance to the Seventh Day, but He didn’t even wait for the sun to rise on Sunday morning. He went right up to Heaven to hear the universe tell Him that they understood.
Lou: So the problem of the resurrection really only comes when a person is locked into a legal model. “It couldn’t be the second death because then He couldn’t have come back from the dead.” But that is not a problem in the larger view.
Graham: That’s right.
Lou: All right, I think you’ve really clarified that. The same person also wanted to ask, “How does God forgive sins, and what is involved in receiving the remission of our sins?”
Graham: The word for “remission” really means forgiveness. It does not mean suppressing a problem for a little while, like the medical term. What’s involved in God forgiving? I believe God is forgiveness personified. Think of the prodigal son story. What had to be done for the father to receive his son back—dirty, and diseased and malnourished as he was? When the boy came home he found his father had forgiven him long before. In fact, it was only when he found out that his father had forgiven him that he really repented. With God it’s not, “If I repent, He’ll forgive me.” Rather, it’s when I find how forgiving He is, that leads me to repentance.
Lou: Here’s a question related to the previous chapter: “Are you suggesting that God has angels who go against the law and kill, such as His angel of death? Does God have a ‘death squad?’”
Graham: It comes back to the meaning of the word, “Thou shalt not kill.” In both the Hebrew and the Greek, that’s not the general word for killing, it is “murder.” “Thou shall not commit murder.” And that’s why Jesus could say, “If you hate your brother, you’ve broken that command. He who hates his brother is a murderer.” There is no commandment that simply says, “You should not kill.” There is a commandment, “You shalt not murder.” The same angels that put many of God’s children asleep will also raise them in the resurrection.
Lou: But they’re not “breaking God’s law. . .”
Graham: They’re not breaking the sixth commandment. And in the end, when the wicked die, it’s not a violation of God’s commandment either.
Lou: Couldn’t God have forgiven us without Jesus having to die?
Graham: He could have forgiven us to be sure; in fact, He did. But the questions were out there. And those questions were so potentially destructive that until the questions were answered the seeds of distrust and sin and rebellion would remain in the universe. I believe that even if Lucifer had repented and come back, Jesus would have needed to answer the questions. Once the questions were asked, you could count on God to answer them, no matter what it cost, and He did it.
Lou: Someone wrote: “There’s a lot of meaning in why we should keep the Sabbath, but it’s the specifying of the day that seems arbitrary, why should we keep the seventh day when most of the Christian world keeps the first? Why couldn’t we keep the first day the same way we keep the seventh? What difference does it make?”
Graham: That is the topic of the next chapter. The reason for bringing the Sabbath in at this point is that nothing has been misrepresented as more arbitrary about God than the Sabbath command. So I bring it in as a test case. I believe the Sabbath is actually a remedy for this misunderstanding. It is a reminder of the evidence that God is not arbitrary.
