Thanks so much for your last two e-mails. I have not gotten back to you because I simply didn’t know what to say, especially after your comments about Paul which left me surprised and somewhat dismayed. I knew I would have to give you a careful and considered response about what I think, and that’s all I can do because it’s not for me to tell you what to or not to believe, and like you said, and I quote, “ I do not wish to take a position that I am right or wrong”.

You know I do appreciate your honesty Bob, and I detect that deep down you are a sincere and godly man, who simply wants to do what is right and has the boldness to say what he believes. Your openness and honesty I like and I like it that you call a spade a spade. Both of us are on a journey of discovery after being released from the bondage of what probably people call a cult.

I do not question the integrity of the dear souls that make up the SDA Church, but the teachings, in fact the entire system, is idolatrous because it puts a person in the place of Christ. Worse, it also puts the Law in the place of Christ and that mind-set is going to remain with me for a long time.

My studies over the last year have shown me that for that reason, (i.e. putting the Law in the place of Christ) the SDA is legalism even though I know first hand that that is not its intention. For me, the fact that it has a creed and insists that we must follow that creed, the fact that it imposes a whole heap of restrictions in respect of every aspect of daily living and, not least, one day of the day, reeks of legalism.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if ever a man espouses conservatism it is I. I was the one who was grounded in Reform Movement theology and deplored SDA liberalism. It was all of EGW or apostasy! If ever a man stood up for church doctrine and standards it was I. I lamented the fact that the Latter Rain had not been poured out and Christ’s coming was being delayed by Laodicea. And there should be order, rules and regulations in any society, not least the community of the church.

But the SDA]s emphasis of this as a requirement by God is not found in the New Testament, rather the exact reverse is true. The SDA Church, especially EGW, taught me to be a committed Christian but, it also taught me to treat other Christians as 2nd class. It taught me to judge others, to separate myself all these years from precious brothers and sisters in Christ, by refusing to dare even to step into one of their churches. It taught me to erect a barrier between me and them, to condemn others (even my own brothers and sisters in the SDA Church) for what they ate or drank, the way they lived, for keeping Sunday. I could not avoid thinking and doing otherwise because I measured all people by the standards of my religion, by the writings of Ellen White and SDA theology.

I now know that in Christ we are free from all such external beliefs that they do not matter any more in respect especially in my standing before God. I am released from that bondage and now I am free to do what my conscience dictates as it is informed by God’s word.

Now, Christ is truly my Head, not Ellen White (who Adventists made a female pope) The SDA GC is no longer the Voice of God, Christ’s Spirit is the Voice of God. He dictates to my conscience what I must do and mustn’t do. I live according to the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and obey His commands. Christ is the Law fulfilled and His life manifest in me will fulfil the Law.

My life is to be an outward expression of the spirit of the Law and I will fulfil all things pertaining to life and godliness as I abide in Him. The Law is not my master because Christ has set me free from the law of sin and death. He is not the minister of death; He is the minister of life. Nor is my master a creed. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness Romans 7:6, and that text means exactly what it says, not what SDAs have made it to say!

As I said above, the SDA [Church] has put Law at the centre of my life, the very place where Christ should have been. I am now a debtor to Christ; not the law. I am determined to put Christ at the centre of my life in the fullest sense, the place I allowed the Law to usurp, and where I now know it had no right to be. I am resolved that my conscience, should now be led by the Spirit of Christ and by an understanding of the Word of God interpreted at face value, not twisted to suit my SDA mind-set with its theological interpretations of the Law).

I am now afraid of the meaning the SDA Church has placed upon the Sabbath, of what it has built up based on assumptions and assumptions upon assumption, implications upon implications. Their interpretation is based on false premises born out of a serious lack of understanding of the Gospel. I am not surprised at its lack of understanding because the church was built on a pyramid of mistakes with Ellen White at the top. Its lack of sound theology at the beginning was born out of ignorance and fanaticism. A complete disregard of mainstream theology did not help.

Ignorance and lack of education was an open door through which Ellen White and her husband imbibed non-scriptural ideas from others until the church had created a system of e religion not based solely on Scripture but upon the testimony of its founder and her husband. The Sabbath itself has been interpreted through EGW and her supposed divine credentials authority suffocates individuality and independent study. She wrote fiercely against individuality in religion. It is no wonder that A. T. Jones wrote on that very thing. If an SDA theologian finds something that is not in accordance with her ideas they either have to give in or give up.

The relevance of the Sabbath has been interpreted through EGW and not through the Bible. In other words, because she accepted the Sabbath it has always been necessary to defer private opinion to her’s, to submit to her claims for the Sabbath. It wasn’t difficult for the early believers to do that because most of them were farming folk with only a basic education. Ellen White, herself, did not complete her education. And the church continues interpreting the Bible through Ellen White’s glasses and not the converse.

I know all this because like you, I referred everything to EGW.

Bob, I don’t want to sound as if I consider myself on the moral high ground, no, sir! I confess I held to all this stuff because I, too, was ignorant and just too lazy to read and check out the Bible for myself with Gods Spirit. I wanted quick answers and a do-it-yourself religion, one which is 100% committed, disciplined with everything in its proper place. So, I say what I say with all humility being reminded always from whence I am fallen. It is only as I have come to submit my understanding to the Gospel as explained through the writings of the Apostle Paul that my eyes have been opened to see what I didn’t see before and could not see because I didn’t want to see. In exactly the same way my eyes were opened to see what I didn’t see and could not see and didn’t want to see before about Ellen White. It was only when I opened my mind and said, Alright then, what exactly IS mainstream Christianity saying about the Gospel, the Law, the Sabbath, et al, that God could show me. I owe this awakening to an introduction God gave me to Romans through personal prayerful studies over 6 months or more before your challenge to me regarding EGW took place. My study on Romans was followed by studies on Galatians over two months with support from Luther’s Lectures. Wow! For the first time in my life my whole being thrilled at the wonderful thought that in Christ I have been set free, FREE!

I personally have no reason to doubt the credentials of Paul, as an Apostle called by Christ. I know beyond all reasonable doubt that he was not taught of man but received the Gospel by direct revelation from Christ on the road to Damascus and evidently when alone with Christ in Arabia for three years. Nor do I doubt Luther’s credentials and his ground-breaking interpretation of the article of justification by faith which took the world by storm and was the springboard for the Great Reformation and the birth of the Protestant’s proud boast sola scriptura. EGW had the audacity to disparage Luther’s teachings and indeed all the Reformers on the ground that they did not have all the light, though she paid lip service to Luther’s stand against the Roman Catholic Church. Why does the SDA disparage the Reformers? Because his expositions of the Gospel prove their interpretation of Galatians to be false. Sure he made mistakes (and that’s because he was human. Even the prophets made mistakes, maybe it’s was because he ate too much pork!) but, unlike Calvin, I do believe he had the Gospel right about law and grace and what God had predestined for the human race in Christ before the foundation of the world and exemplified in Romans 5:18. Like us, Luther probably didn’t get everything right at first when he departed the RC Church, but then nor did Peter, whom Paul had to withstand face-to-face regarding his hypocrisy over the Law.

The Lord has a lot of work to do with me yet, I am not yet out of the woods, certainly not least in the area of legalism, because I have spent half my life with the mind-set of an SDA.

Bob, believe me, I have been very, very, very careful about the Sabbath as you can well imagine with my background. It has not been easy and I have been more than cautious. My studies have been exhaustive on the Sabbath. I have found overwhelming evidence which would stand up in a court of law that the Sabbath was indeed a shadow of the rest we now have in Christ our Creator and Redeemer.

But, in obedience to the Scripture, I refuse to judge anyone who wants to esteem the Sabbath.

I agree with you when you say, and I quote, “I believe that we both have been awakened to a new understanding of what Sola Scriptura means” but, Bob, it has come home to me so strongly that the moonlight of the Old Testament must always be read in the sunshine of the New Testament!

Now, our belief system should be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ, Himself, being the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:20).

By the way your understanding that the guilty party in adultery is not free to remarry is not a new argument to me, because years ago I was an observer of two brothers arguing over this issue. I have since come to understand that God’s grace extends forgiveness and gives the guilty person freedom to start their life again, provided there are the fruits of true repentance. Adultery is not an unforgivable sin. I think Jesus taught that to many an adulterer and one that springs to mind is the woman at the well. Jesus didn’t make any conditions that I am aware of, and I don’t see anything in the New Testament which forbids the guilty from being forgiven and starting a new life. Even David received God’s forgiveness and was restored to His favour and his child, from the woman he committed adultery with, was the one from Christ descended. But I admit that I have not studied this through properly and I an open to correction.

No, I don’t think that the God of the Old Testament is any different than the God of the New Testament but He did have a purpose for Israel and ruled directly in the form of a theocracy which meant He meted out temporal punishment on the spot, hence stoning for adultery. The OT laws that introduced punishment no longer exist because God’s people are subject to the laws of the land wherever they live. This doesn’t mean that NT folk can sin with impunity and that there isn’t a judgment one day but I do believe that those laws were for the Jews alone and that all Law is transcended by and briefly apprehended in the Royal Law of Love.

Adam was made in the image of God and by nature the Law was written upon the heart. In Heaven the redeemed will be in the image of God and the Law will by nature be written in their hearts. There will be no need to read out the letter of the law in Heaven because there will be no sin. Law was added because of sin.

Ceremonial law is always subordinate to moral law.

There is abundant evidence that the Sabbath was subject to moral law and, even at times, to ceremonial law. Christ and His disciples broke the law of the Sabbath, for the greater good of man as it were; Christ spoke of priests who broke the Sabbath so that David and his men could eat. The reason was that it was a ceremonial law subject to the needs of humanity. Hence Christ said that 'the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath'. It was made for the sake of man. The moral law can never be broken not even if you are starving to death. You ask what was Christ really saying and my understanding is that Christ was teaching a new and better way and that’s why He led men out of the old system and established His church while the old system was still around. That was radical and it took courage and authority. He taught a new thing the spirit of the law and of eternal rest in Him. Come unto me all ye that labour and I will give you rest. Of course He kept the Sabbath because He was a Jew but it pointed to Him and once He had fulfilled it and all Law He ushered in a new dispensation in which He is the fulfilment of the Law and we receive our life from Him and not by anything we do. He fulfilled the Sabbath because it pointed back to His creative work and rest and forward to His creative work in redemption and thus to our present and eternal rest in Him.

Back to Paul. Yes he taught exactly the same Gospel as Christ was taught and He was commissioned by Christ to carry on teaching it to the Gentile world. I don’t believe Paul and Christ’s teachings differ because they are one and the same Spirit. Previously I had interpreted Paul’s writings through the eyes of legalism and that’s why I was not able to reconcile the Law in Galatians with the Gospel and, I say this with all humility and respect, could it be that is why you, (by your own admission) you cannot see it now? No, I don’t believe there is any difference between Christ and Paul except time and place. I do not follow Paul or Apollo or Luther and I am not interested in following Luther because he was not an Apostle. But I will follow Christ’s Word given through any man, in exactly the same way I follow Gods word through Isaiah, David, Peter, James or John. This is my duty before God to listen to their word which Christ prayed in John 17. The Scripture that refers to the church being built upon the foundation of the Apostles has taken on new meaning for me since I stepped out of the SDA church.

Bob, my brother, please do not misunderstand me, I am fully sensitive to your present convictions about the Sabbath and the last thing I want to do is to decry what your conscience is teaching you yet I think that if you have not already done so that you owe it to yourself and to God to allow His Spirit to show you both sides of the debate seeing what we have just stepped out of. So, in the same way you challenged me about EGW I challenge you to do the same with the true and everlasting Gospel. Not the Sabbath, because the true Gospel will take care of that.

Always yours in Christ,

Brian