Stephen
Terry, Director
Covenant
at Sinai
Commentary
for the August 23, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
"This is the
covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the
Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be
their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their
neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know
me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "For I will
forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Jeremiah
31:33-34, NIV
There
is an old saw that says going to church does not make you a Christian any more
than standing in a garage makes you a car. But we nonetheless tend to describe
our faith based on things, things that we possess and other things that we do not.
We say we are a Christian because we possess membership in the right
denomination, even though there are thousands of "right" denominations, each with
uniquely delineated dogma. Whether we describe ourselves as the "remnant" as
Seventh-day Adventists, the "one true church" as the Latter Day Saints, or as
the "hundred and forty-four thousand" as the Jehovah's Witnesses once did, we
ironically will say that God may save others outside of the fold, compassionately
overlooking their ignorance while claiming a more exalted status than all
others because of our specialness in God's eyes.
We bend
over backwards doing things to safeguard that specialness. We deny clerical
ordination to women. We push people to accept extreme diets that become
effectual barriers to prevent socializing with those outside the fold. We make appeal
to denominational authorities to resolve questions of biblical interpretation,
and if our interpretation differs from those others beyond our flock, it only
establishes why we are special, and they are not. We feel we are the ones who
will be seated at the right hand of God and not them as the mother of James and
John sought from Jesus. (Matthew
20:20-23) We drive people from fellowship who have not achieved enough
righteousness or are progressing too slowly to become like us. Despite that,
God works miracles.
Seventh-day
Adventists claim to have over twenty-two million members globally. While that
is a ridiculously small number compared to a world population of over eight
billion, it is still amazing considering how hard we work to drive people from
our ranks after they have been baptized into the denomination. There are apocryphal
stories about new members being visited by a local
elder and seeing their unkosher groceries tossed into the garbage now that they
are Seventh-day Adventists. I have not personally witnessed this, but I have witnessed
a head deaconess hound a new member so much because she continued to attend her
old church as well as the Adventist church that she finally decided she was appreciated
more in her old denomination and left to go where she was wanted and loved.
Lest we think this is a problem only in Adventism, it happens in other
denominations also. Churches are replete with members who remain in the membership
books but have not attended in years, even decades. When I have visited such
members as a pastor, I usually heard three different reasons for this. They stopped
attending because of theological differences, political power mongering, or
social exclusion because they did not fit in with the ruling clique.
In
multigenerational churches, this can start at an early age. Children in both
parochial and public schools tend to organize themselves according to the social
status of their parents, and they create rules for who is "in" or "out." Even
non-Christians understand these rules. Something said or done by Aunt Prudence
still reverberates three and four generations later affecting the prospects of
those who never even met the offending aunt. These things should not be a part
of the Christian experience, but they are.
Ironically,
the Seventh-day Adventist Church claims to be the remnant church because they "keep
God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus." (Revelation 12:17)
In truth, however, they have broken every one of the commandments and deny the
inclusive testimony of Jesus. How have they broken the commandments? They denied
that love is the regulatory basis for all of Creation. Without love, the
decalogue is nothing more than words carved in unfeeling stone. If we come to
God through an argument over keeping the decalogue, our hearts may become as
hard as the stone tablets graven on Mount Sinai. God's intent is to change the
hardness of such hearts, giving us a loving heart of flesh as he once gave
Adam. (Ezekiel
36:26) those who choose to take the fork in the path that circles
continuously around Mount Sinai would avoid that surgery for fear of the imagined
pain of giving up the security the burden of rules and regulations promises
them. But just as the ancient Jews discovered, those regulations are fertile
and once rooted they never cease producing more offspring. For those ancient
peoples it meant pinning a kerchief to one's garment so it would be considered
an item of clothing and not something that needed to be carried on the Sabbath.
For us, it means that tossing a football on Sabbath is profane, but tossing a
Frisbee is kosher. There is no end to the inanity spawned when we live for the
rules.
The
Apostle Paul wrote three letters to further the understanding of the
relationship between the law and God's character, the character we were spawned
in the image of. (Genesis
1:27) He wrote to the church in Rome, the church in Galatia, and the church
in Ephesus. Despite thousands of years studying those letters, we still have
trouble understanding the role of love in the life of the Christian. God gave the
Sabbath to be a blessing, a gift of grace for humanity, not a burden to weary
his days. (Mark
2:27) But we have made it such an exacting burden with our sundown
schedules as though God has little better to do than to sit in heaven with his
eyes on his Rolex to make sure little Susie or Johnny does not violate a single
second of the sacred Sabbath with a profane thought or deed. Children have been
taught that God frowns on children who go swimming on a sweltering summer
Sabbath, but a strenuous family hike over hill and dale is blessed. Doubtless a
righteous legalist somewhere has compiled a list of Sabbath breaking bicycle
riders, skateboarders, and trampoline jumpers in their misguided attempt to be
God's enforcer, hoping to earn enough points as a divine favorite to waltz
right in the pearly gates.
But
it does not work that way. It never did. It was always about relieving burdens,
not about adding to them. Examples are readily found in both the Old and the
New Testaments. The Prophet Isaiah expressed it like this, "Is not this the
kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the
cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to
share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when
you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and
blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will
quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of
the Lord will be your rear guard." (Isaiah 58:6-8) Jesus echoed these sentiments
in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats. (Matthew
25:31-46)
We
have become a sorry, unlovely, and unloving species. The Ten Commandments will
not get us into heaven any more than obeying the speed limit while driving
will. The letter of the law cannot save us. If we are motivated by love for our
neighbor, we are on the right track. But if we are motivated by a desire to not
get caught out, we are already in trouble. Our motivation condemns us as
lawbreakers even if we do not appear to be outwardly. Do we keep the Sabbath because
we are afraid of what God might do to us if we do not? Or do we keep the
Sabbath in love with the rest it provides us and the time and opportunity it
gives us to live an entire day each week in a love unhindered by worries and concerns.
You see, the Sabbath is a reminder that if we can depend on God for one day
each week, we can depend on him for the entire week, month, year, and even an
entire life.
When
Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James, and John from their fishing nets, they left
everything behind to follow him. Toward the end of his ministry, they reminded Jesus
of this, and he asked them if they lacked anything as a result. They responded,
"Nothing!" (Luke 22:35) Thus it is with the commandments. Love will see us
lacking nothing. It is not harshness and judgment that the law is about. Love
is the commandment, and its expression is not limited by ten rules on stone
tablets. Those tablets cannot contain the entirety of the love of God any more
than any human heart can. But we can reflect the image of that love. Love is a
light shining in darkness, and that light strains to be seen in our lives that
it might light up the world, dispelling fear with hope, faith, and trust.