According to Adventist doctrine, the law works together with grace to justify the believer. Adventism teaches that God, through Jesus, gives a sinner grace to build a holy life after the model of the law. Salvation will be determined by how successful this life is built. While Adventists profess to believe in salvation by grace alone, theirs is a redefinition of biblical grace. The following study proves this:

1. Law and grace are not opposing systems, but work together for man’s salvation; law has a greater place in salvation than merely to lead men to Christ.

"The fact that all who are redeemed are saved by grace does not dispense with the law of God any more in the one dispensation than in the other. The law is not against grace, and grace is not against the law ... Grace is not something that exists apart from the law, but by reason of the law. It is, therefore, foolishness to talk of one age as the dispensation of the law, and the other as the dispensation of grace, as if each existed at a different period of time from the other. Law and grace have existed side by side from the time man first sinned, and will stand together until man’s probation closes" (Charles T. Everson, Saved By Grace, pp. 11,17).

2. Salvation is attained by faith and grace working together to enable a man to build a character according to the law.

"Christ says to every man in this world what He said to the rich young ruler: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.’ Matthew 18:17. In other words, the standard for admission into heaven is a character built according to the ten specifications, or commandments, of God’s law. ... The Master Builder will stand right with you, and see to it personally that your life comes up to the requirements of God’s law" (Saved By Grace, pp. 45-46).

"The question that decides destinies for eternity is, ‘Have you by the grace of Christ done the will of the Father—have you kept His word?’" (The Great Judgment Day, p. 114).

3. The law is the standard by which God shall judge believers.

"The Ten Commandments are heaven’s balances of justice and righteousness, in which the great Judge will weigh the life of each person ... nine points of obedience in our lives will not meet the ten requirements in God’s law. The law of Ten Commandments is the standard by which the characters and the lives of men will be tested in the judgment. It is important, therefore, that we obey it. In order to be prepared for the judgment, it is necessary that men be obedient to God’s holy law" (The Great Judgment Day, p. 114).

"So in the great day of final atonement and investigative judgment the only cases considered are those of the professed people of God. ... The law of God is the standard by which the characters and the lives of men will be tested in the judgment. ... Those who in the judgment are ‘accounted worthy’ will have a part in the resurrection of the just" (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, pp. 423-425).

4. The law is the believer’s way of life. The law was given as a rule of life, as well as a revealer of sin.

"Instead of being free to ignore and break the law because he is saved by grace, he is now doubly obligated to keep it. ... In other words, the one who forsakes, or gives up, sinning, or breaking God’s law, to him will be given mercy, or grace. ... And if we make the effort to walk in the commandments of God, Christ will supply us with the power needed. ... In other words, if you fully surrender to Christ, He not only pardons your past transgression of the law, but comes into your life as you go forward with Him. ... It is very evident, then, that in the new covenant we do not see the law a thing of no consequence, but we find it occupying the center of the covenant" (Saved By Grace, pp. 23, 26-27, 30-31, 36).

"Upon these two ‘tables,’ or tablets, of stone were Ten Commandments, divinely designed for man’s well-being, to direct him in paths of righteousness and preserve him from evil" (Arthur S. Maxwell, Your Bible and You, p. 95).

"The Ten Commandments are the only perfect rule of conduct in this world today. God gave man the Decalogue as a rule of life" (The Great Judgment Day, pp. 113-114).

Following is a summary of every major New Testament passage dealing with the law. The major truths emphasized by the Apostles are broken down and followed by the Scripture quotations. The reader is encouraged to look up and study each one of the passages referred to in this study. We are confident the Lord will encourage you in the eternal liberty the believer has in Christ Jesus.

We can summarize the New Testament’s teaching on the law in this way: The Apostles’ doctrine of the law compliments their doctrine of grace, resulting in a gospel that is truly good news for sinners. The Apostles taught that the law was given by God for one main reason: to lead men to Christ. It does this by showing the need for salvation through revealing sin, and by pointing the way of salvation through types and prophecies. Once the law has done its work of bringing a man to the Savior, it has no more work to do for that man. The justified man has his all in Christ. The believer is forever freed from any condemnation of the law, since he has been made perfect in Christ, identified positionally with Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection. The believer has been forever removed from the realm of sin and death because God has put away his sin and declared him righteous. The law is not the believer’s rule of life. The believer has a much higher calling—to put on Christ Jesus and to follow the Spirit of God. The New Testament does not point back to the law as the believer’s path of obedience—although the basic underlying moral principles of the law are eternal. The law, including the Ten Commandments "written and graven in stone," was a "ministration of death" which has been abolished in Christ.

1. The law has one chief work, to lead men to Jesus Christ. The law cannot bring blessing to men in any sense except to lead them to salvation. A man is justified by faith ALONE through grace ALONE, entirely and forever apart from the law. Because of man’s fallen condition, the law can only condemn him. The law is indeed holy and good, but it can do nothing for sinful man except to reveal his wicked condition and to lead him to Christ. "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Ro. 3:19-20). "The law entered, that the offense might abound" (Ro. 5:20). "The strength of sin is the law" (1 Co. 15:56). See also Ro. 7:7-13; 2 Co. 5:5-13; Ga. 2:16; 3:9-24; 1 Ti. 1:6-11.

"The law demands strength from one that has none, and curses him if he cannot display it. The Gospel gives strength to one that has none, and blesses him in the exhibition of it. The law proposes life as the end of obedience, the Gospel gives life as the only proper ground of obedience" (C.H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch, pp. 232-233).

2. The law holds no power over the believer; he is placed in Christ entirely out of the law’s grasp. The law can no more bring condemnation to the believer than it can to Christ Himself, since the believer has been made perfect in Christ. The law has no more power over the believer than the dead husband has over a living wife. The Apostles knew nothing of the Adventist doctrine that the believer is to conform his life to the standards of the law by the power of the resurrected Christ, and that if he fails to do so the law will condemn him in the day of judgment.

"Wherefore my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God" (Ro. 7:4). See also Ro. 5:1-2,6-11; 6:3-7; 8:8-10; 10:4; Ga. 3:24-29).

3. Even the Ten Commandments were a covenant of death, from which bondage the believer has been forever freed. Adventist leaders protest that the moral law, represented in the Ten Commandments, was not done away at the cross of Christ; only the ceremonial law was done away there, they say. But the New Testament says that even the Ten Commandments—perhaps especially the Ten Commandments—were a covenant of death! The Mosaic law as a whole had one chief purpose. It was given by God to fallen man in order to show him his sin and need of the Savior. In relation to justification, the believer is as dead to the Ten Commandments as he is to the rest of the Mosaic law.

"Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if THE MINISTRATION OF DEATH, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if THE MINISTRATION OF CONDEMNATION be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory ... For if THAT WHICH IS DONE AWAY was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious ... And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of THAT WHICH IS ABOLISHED..." (2 Co. 3:6-13).

Notice that the Apostle said the Ten Commandments—the law written in stone—were a part of the Mosaic law which is done away with in Christ. Two times the Apostle tells us that the Ten Commandments are abolished. Two times he tells us that the Ten Commandments were a ministration of death and condemnation! Of course. That is all God’s law can be to the fallen man. It can only show man’s sin and inability to please God and his condemnation for being in his fallen, sinful condition. The Ten Commandments reveal man’s sin and declare God’s judgment, for the wages of sin is death.

4. The law has been done away with in Christ. We have already seen in 2 Corinthians 3 that Paul tells us that the law has been done away, abolished. Words could not be plainer. For the Adventist teacher to come along after Paul and point the believer back to the law as a rule of life is a great evil.

5. The law is not the believer’s rule of life. The believer is told to put on Christ, not the law, to follow the Spirit of God, not the law. The believer’s aim is not to be conformed to the law, but to be conformed to the image of Christ (Ro. 8:29). The Holy Spirit molds and transforms the believer’s life into the image of the Lord Jesus. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Co. 3:18). "Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof" (Ro. 13:13-14). See also Ro. 8:11-14; Ga. 5:16-25.

"If the law be indeed the rule of a believer’s life, where are we to find it so presented in the New Testament? The inspired Apostle evidently had no thought of its being the rule when he penned the following words: ‘For in Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and on the Israel of God’ (Ga. 6:15-16). What ‘rule’? The law? No; but the ‘new creation.’ Where shall we find this in Exodus 20? It speaks not a word about ‘new creation.’ On the contrary, it addresses itself to man as he is—in his natural or old-creation state—and puts him to the test as to what he is really able to do. Now if the law were the rule by which believers are to walk, why does the apostle pronounce his benediction on those who walk by another rule altogether? Why does he not say, as many as walk according to rule of the Ten Commandments? Is it not evident, from this one passage, that the Church of God has a higher rule by which to walk?" (C.H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch, pp. 232-233).

"I, as a Christian, obey all law that is moral in the Decalogue, not because it is in the Law, but because it is in the Gospel. Worship of God only is enjoined fifty times in the New Testament; idolatry is forbidden twelve times; profanity four times; honor of father and mother is commanded six times; adultery is forbidden twelve; theft six; false witness four; and covetousness, nine times. ‘The Ten Commandments,’ as Luther says, ‘do not apply to us Gentiles and Christians, but only to the Jews.’ So therefore, Paul, in all his fourteen epistles, never once names the Sabbath—except in a single passage where, classing it with the entire law, he declares it has been totally abolished. So the early church held" (William C. Irvine, Heresies Exposed, p. 165).

"And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they..." (Ac. 15:8-11). See also Ro. 4:4-5,12-16; 11:5,6;

7. To point believers back to the law as a rule of life is to place them back under legalistic bondage, bringing a curse upon the one who teaches this lie, and upon the one who believes it. The Apostles condemned in strong language those who in any way tried to get believers to return to the law as a rule of life. They knew nothing of the Seventh-day Adventist idea that the law is a blessing to the justified man.

"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham" (Ga. 3:1-9). See also Ac. 15:10,24; Ga. 1:7-9; 2:4; 4:9-11,19-21; 5:1-9;

Christ came to redeem men from bondage to the law, to remove their condemnation by paying the price the law demanded for man’s sin. Those who try to bring believers back under the law are deceiving men and pointing them away from the finished work of Christ and true Bible freedom in Him. They themselves are cursed because of their false gospel, and they are leading others from truth into their curse. The goal of salvation is not to bring the believer to the law, but to present him perfect in Christ!