This is the third post in a series on the SDA Clear Word, for the previous entry please click HERE.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church believes that the weekly Sabbath day is a moral law that should be kept today.  They also believe that you must keep it perfectly by your own diligent effort without a mediator after the close of probation or you will get the mark of the beast and be damned.  For proof on that please click HERE.

This post is not really about the Sabbath though.  My issue with the SDA isn’t really the Sabbath anyway it’s the false gospel associated with it.  For example, I respect Seventh-Day Baptists a great deal and understand why they observe the Sabbath.  I believe they are mistaken but I also believe there is a thing called Christian Freedom which applies to things like the Sabbath Day (Rom 14:5).

That said, do SDA actually believe that Sabbath keeping is taught in scripture or did they feel the need to modify the Bible to say what they believe?  This is the question that I seek to answer in comparing the Clear Word version with the Holy Bible.  I am going to present some common texts that SDA themselves use to argue for Sabbath keeping and see if they made any significant changes.

Notice in the Holy Bible nothing is created on the Seventh Day, God simply stops working.  In the Clear Word the author adds a creation of rest as an ongoing memorial.  SDA do in fact believe in a Seventh Day of “creation week” where as most Christians speak of six days.  If SDA really believe that the text teaches rest was created in this text why do they feel the need to add it in?

Where is this talk of a “memorial” and “refreshment” in the Holy Bible?  This concept is added in lock stock and barrel, there is no indication of such things in the original.  Why did SDA feel the need to add this in the text?  If they believe this is taught here would it not be there already?

Notice that the Holy Bible excludes Gentiles entirely, if you are born as a child of Israel and are within their literal generations living before the new covenant then you could argue this applies to you.  The Clear Word though says “my people” and instead of generations just uses the word “forever”.  These concepts are not in the Biblical text.

SDA believe that literal passages such as this one are to be interpreted figuratively so that they apply to believing New Covenant gentiles as well.  But if they honestly did believe the text conveyed this meaning all on its own why tweak it?  Shouldn’t it already plainly say what you believe?

The first thing that strikes me is that they felt the need to use the word Sabbath twice.  Check in the greek on BibleHub and you will see it only occurs in the text once.  The reason seems to be that the writer of the clear word wants to define custom as childhood sabbath keeping and scripture reading.  This concept isn’t in the Holy Bible at all.  His custom could simply be to preach the Word in the Synagogue during his ministry.

I’m not saying that Jesus didn’t keep the sabbath growing up.  I’m just saying this verse doesn’t convey what the Clear Word does.  For some reason the writer chose to add it in himself.  It does make sense that Jesus would have kept the Sabbath as a child, he grew up in the old covenant and was even circumcised on the 8th day.  He also kept Passover and the rest of the Torah.  It would be silly to draw prescriptive conclusions off of that though.

Where did all the text in red come from?  There isn’t even a stray word in this verse of the Holy Bible that conveys a shred of that thought.  It’s as if the SDA just threw their hands in the air and decided to turn the Gospel of Luke into Bible Fan-fiction.

The Holy Bible uses broad terms that can include any and all days.  Clearly the Apostolic faith has no Holy Days with regards to the Law.  The only way to rescue Sabbath keeping as a law is to insert distinctions of types of days into the verse with your imagination.  But Paul gives no such distinctions.

If SDA really believe that this passage has a distinguishing of types of days why did they have to add those distinctions themselves into their new Bible?  Why isn’t it clear enough on its own?  Is the Holy Bible insufficient for them?

The key to understanding what the SDA have changed in this passage is the use the words “which” and “or”.  These set up a paradigm where some things are included and others are excluded.  This is because they believe that the Saturday Sabbath day is not spoken of in this verse at all.

The problem is, in the Holy Bible Paul uses the phrase “in respect of”.  This indicates a categorical distinction rather than an itemized one.  Thus we are on the Category of the Holy Days of the Torah, and the weekly Sabbath was included in that system.

If SDA truly did believe that this verse didn’t address the weekly Sabbath why was it necessary to modify at all?

I am fully aware of how SDA eisegete the Sabbath into Revelation 1:10.  If it really was as obvious as they say though why did the writer have to change the words?  Shouldn’t it be clear all on its own to anyone reading?

Also we have an added narrative of John walking around the shore .  I don’t know why that was necessary but if fan-fiction is allowed at this point then who knows what we can come up with.

Conclusion

If the Bible doesn’t say what you believe, instead of bending the text to your beliefs I recommend simply bending your beliefs to the text.  It can be painful but in the end it is worth it.  And one of the perks is you can read any old Bible and it will say exactly what you believe all the time.  You don’t have to go make a special one that works better for you.