AboutSal Expertise I am privileged to be able to offer an alternative insight into the complicated world of Seventh-Day Adventists (SDA) theology. I will rely heavily on the Bible, but will also consider history and use logic in exposing deficiencies in SDA teachings. I would ask anyone who is considering becoming a SDA or if you are already in the SDA church, but are searching for the truth, to please allow me to offer a different explanation for the claims of the SDA. Remember : "The truth will set you free" (John 8:32). I can answer your questions pertaining to the beliefs and history of the SDA. I am not able to answer questions concerning spirituality or church discipline.
Experience I have extensively studied the theology of the Seventh-Day Adventists (SDA) for a number of years. I have many books and tape sets produced by experts in this field of study. I have debated current members of the SDA church. I have a great desire to help these people see the truth.
Education/Credentials M.S. degree in Food, Nutrition, and Dietetics
Question Dear Sal:
Let me help you understand Gal 4:21-31. The slave Hagar represents the ceremonial law which Christians are not under. We are supposed to cast out that ceremonial law.
Help this helps.
Lisa
Answer Dear Lisa:
I believe that a careful exegesis of the passage will prove you wrong. Firstly, Paul introduces the allegory with “these two women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar” (v. 24). Immediately we are told that the two women are, or represent, two covenants. Please note “two covenants” not two aspects of the same covenant, but clearly two covenants. For me that quickly answers your argument that Hagar represents one aspect of the Old Covenant, the ceremonial laws only. Paul says that Hagar is the covenant associated with Mount Sinai.
Secondly, in the verse following the allegory Paul states, “Standfast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1). The word “therefore” indicates that what Paul is about to say is because of what he has just said. In other words, because Hagar is to be cast out by Christians (v. 30) we have been set free from “the yoke of bondage”. The yoke of bondage is the whole covenant associated with Mount Sinai that is, the Mosaic or Old Covenant. It is not just the ceremonial laws of that covenant. Paul makes this unmistakenly clear elsewhere in his writings. “When he speaks of a ‘new covenant’, he declares that first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing” (Hebrews 8:13). Paul is clear that the entire Old Covenant is obsolete. As in Galatians, here Paul makes no distinction between parts of the Old Covenant. It is all obsolete.
In Acts 15 we learn that those who were promoting Christians keeping the Old Law were not promoting keeping only the ceremonial laws. “But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up, and said, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the Law of Moses'” (v. 5). Circumcision was the entrance sign into the whole Old Covenant not just the ceremonial aspect of the covenant. As Paul noted, “Once again I declare to every man who has himself circumcised that he is bound to observe the entire law” (Galatians 5:3). It is the entire Old Covenant law that we are free from not merely the ceremonial. Jesus did not die to free us from the ceremonial laws. He died to free us from bondage to sin. He died to make Jew and Gentile into one family of God.
11Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. 19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:11-22).
I once read a very interesting statement concerning Galatians 5:1 from one John G. Reisinger. He stated that if the ceremonial law is what Jesus died to free us from then he died so that we could eat bacon with our eggs.
