Objection 16: By preaching the law you endeavor to deprive Christians of the glorious liberty of the gospel.
Christ declared, “Every one that commits sin is the bondservant of sin.” John 8:34. Therefore it is the man whose life is not in obedience to the law of God who is deprived of liberty. The righteous man finds freedom and joy in God’s law.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Psalm 19:8-11
Law and liberty are not opposing concepts. You need not surrender one in order to have the other. True, there are men who stand up at street corners and declare that the only way to have real liberty is to abolish all laws. But most people understand that laws wisely made and well-kept provide the only sure foundation for liberty in any country.
In any country, the ones who find in law a curtailing of their liberty are those whose habits of life are in opposition to the law. The man who is accustomed to steal or to murder finds that the law checks the freedom of his actions very greatly.
If, as citizens of this world, we find liberty in obedience to manmade law, why, as citizens of the heavenly world, do we need God’s law to be abolished in order to have liberty? Is it because the laws of heaven are unjust and deprive us of the freedom that ought rightfully to be ours? The very thought is blasphemy.
The law of God prohibits making or worshiping idols. No man who calls himself a Christian can feel deprived of liberty by such a prohibition. The law also commands us not to take God's name in vain or to desecrate His holy Sabbath day. Does the child of God want to be freed from these prohibitions? Likewise the law commands respect for parents, and prohibits killing, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting. Certainly no follower of Christ will feel that these precepts deprive him of liberty. Indeed, the Bible definitely speaks of God’s holy law as “the law of liberty.” (See James 2:12.)
True, if the law is preached to men apart from the gospel—the saving power of God through the sacrificial death of Christ—the result will be only a feeling of condemnation on the part of the hearers. They will simply be brought to a realization of how guilty they are, without knowing of Christ’s pardon. But when the high code of heaven is presented in terms of God's promise to forgive and to give us divine power to carry out the law’s requirements, then the hearers can find joy and true liberty in such preaching; for “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 2 Cor. 3:17.
No one would ever have thought of bringing against Seventh day Adventists the charge of depriving men of Christian liberty if it were not that we preach the law exactly as it reads in the Bible. Other Protestant denominations believe in the law and declare that obedience to it is necessary. They have believed so strongly that the Ten Commandments should be obeyed by all that they have persuaded legislatures in most of Christendom to enact statutes to facilitate the observance of the Sabbath command, as they interpret it.
Just why we, who invoke only the grace of God to enable men to obey the command to keep holy the seventh day, should be charged as legalists while Sunday keepers, who invoke public ordinances to compel men to rest on the first day of the week, should claim to be the exponents of grace, is surely one of the strange contradictions in modern religion.
Seventh-day Adventists have ever been vigorous opponents of the principle of approaching Sabbath rest from the legal standpoint, whereas Sunday keeping preachers are the ones who have lobbied their legislatures to pass laws to enforce Sunday rest.
Just what is there about preaching first-day sacredness from the fourth commandment—as Protestant denominations do—that allows them to bask in the warmth of grace; whereas the preaching of seventh day sacredness from the same fourth commandment consigns such preachers to the chill limbo of legalism?
The explanation cannot possibly he found in the theory that we who preach seventh day sacredness do so more sternly and rigorously than first-day preachers. Even a cursory acquaintance with the history of Christianity reveals that Sunday sacredness has quite generally been proclaimed with a severity that frightened large majorities into conformity. Although lately there has been a noticeable relaxation of this severity, it does not reflect any change of view toward the first day by Sunday-keeping religious leaders. Many of them bemoan the laxity that has crept in.
When we declare that a certain definite day has been set apart as holy, we are frequently met with the argument that there is no difference in days in the Christian Era, that it is unreasonable to maintain that a special sacredness or significance attaches to a particular day in the cycle of the week. But evidently by the actions and statements of Sunday-keepers themselves there is a vast difference in days, so vast a difference that the keeping of one particular day means that you are shackled by legalism, and the keeping of another particular day means that you roam freely over the wide expanses of grace. Seventh day Adventists never taught a sharper contrast in days than this.
Therefore the point at issue is not whether the Ten Commandments should be obeyed or not; almost all Protestant creeds clearly teach obedience to the Ten Commandments.
Nor is it a question of whether there is a wide difference in days. Protestants in general believe there is so mighty a difference as to justify civil laws and penalties to maintain the difference. The real question is this: Seeing that the Ten Commandments are in force, and seeing that there is a difference in days, which day is the right one, the seventh or the first? In the series of Sabbath objections beginning with Objection 20, a partial answer, at least, will be found.