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A Response to the Video:
Seventh-day Adventism, the Spirit Behind the Church

by Bob Pickle

Answers to Questions Raised by:
Mark Martin, Sydney Cleveland
Dale Ratzlaff, The White Lie
. . . and Others

Discern Fact from Fiction

Salvation, Grace, and Obedience

#153: "Christians are to grow in grace and keep God's commandments out of a love for Him, not under compulsion."—Mark Martin.

#153: Christians will keep God's commandments out of love. This statement is one of the most prominent contradictions in the video. How more self-destructive can this logic be? "We should not try to keep the law, but we will keep the law if we love God."

It can't be both ways. We have to pick one or the other: 1) Christians should keep the law of God and refrain from murder, adultery, theft, and lies. 2) Christians do not need to worry about that at all and can continue all the old perversions they used to do before they came to Christ.

If Mr. Martin's statement that Christians will keep the law because they love God is true, which it is, then whether they are indeed keeping the law or not is an indicator of how much they love Him. So adamantly refusing to keep a biblical command of God is evidence that we do not really love Him.

Why would Mr. Martin or anyone else contradict himself in this way? Actually, this kind of thing is all too common. It typically happens when someone is trying to avoid one of the Ten Commandments. The arguments against obedience are aimed at just one of the ten, while the statements in favor of obedience are concerning the other nine.

Which one of the ten do you think Mr. Martin might be trying to avoid? Is he trying to convince us that it is all right to kill, fornicate, steal, lie, covet, dishonor our parents, have other gods in place of God, bow down to images, or take God's name in vain? Or might he be trying to avoid the one that says to remember the Sabbath of the Lord to keep it holy?

Christians will "keep God's commandments out of love." Mr. Martin's connection between obedience to God's law and love is biblically sound, supported by thirteen verses from the New Testament and eleven from the Old:

If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. (John 14:21)

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. (John 15:10)

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Mat. 22:37-40)

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. (Rom. 13:8)

Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Rom. 13:10)

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (Gal. 5:14)

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. (1 Jn. 5:2, 3) [p. 102]

And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. (2 Jn. 6)

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Ex. 20:6; Deut. 5:10)

Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. (Deut. 7:9)

Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway. (Deut. 11:1)

If ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God. (Deut. 11:13)

For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God. (Deut. 11:22)

If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the LORD thy God. (Deut. 19:9)

In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments. (Deut. 30:16)

But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments. (Josh. 22:5)

O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. (Neh. 1:5)

O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments. (Dan. 9:4)

Whether in Old Testament or New Testament times, the obedience that God requires is an obedience that is motivated by love. Anything less is not really obedience at all.

We ought to briefly revisit one point. Remember how under #93 we saw that the New Testament teaches that no one has ever seen God the Father? Thus when we read about Abraham or Jacob or Manoah seeing God, it means that they saw Christ.

Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink. (Ex. 24:9-11)

So this must have been Christ as well who met with these folk on Mt. Sinai.

This answers for us the following question: When Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15), do His "commandments" include the Ten?

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