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In three earlier Testimonies I have described, how God has blessed my work of spreading The Great Controversy, by Ellen White around Sweden. These efforts have resulted in many conversations with people on spiritual matters, sometimes ending in proper Bible studies. Not having written about these Bible studies in my earlier Testimonies, I now feel God’s calling to do so here.

Several years ago I discussed the subject of whether the soul is immortal with a theologian, whose roots were in Pentecostalism. I quoted Ecclesiastes 9:5 –“the dead know not anything” – and received a response which puzzled me: “Now, that comes from the Old Testament!” He was, thus, of the opinion that the Old Testament is not as trustworthy as the New Testament. To me, as a Seventh-day Adventist, both the Testaments are, naturally enough, equally trustworthy. However, when encountering professed Christians from other denominations, I have been left wondering at the number of persons sharing the view of the theologian above.

When sometimes having Bible studies with other Christian professors, as a result of offering them The Great Controversy, it has struck me that, generally speaking, these have only been carrying the New Testament with them (whenever they have brought Scripture along). Thus, they have not been interested in discussing what the Old Testament has to say about various biblical subjects, but restricted their input to that from the New Testament Scriptures. In view of the paramount importance of the Old Testament to us Seventh-day Adventists when it comes to major truths like the Sabbath commandment, the investigative judgment, the health message (as well as other topics), this means great consequences for us as to how to proceed when meeting Christians from other denominations and trying to explain our various beliefs. For instance, I remember a person who believed the seven days of creation in Genesis, Chapter 1, were seven long periods of time and, therefore, did not believe that the Sabbath came about during the seventh day (and, consequently, neither believed the Sabbath is valid today). How do we go about convincing people about our faith?

The only reasonable option is beginning to explain about our faith from the New Testament. When, through the grace of God, our discussion partners have been convinced about some of our truths, it would be wise, thereafter, to look up the Old Testament in order to try to instil a deeper understanding of the point investigated. This, moreover, should increase their faith in the Old Testament. We are obliged to accept the fact that the way is getting increasingly narrower, and that Satan incessantly is attempting to make as many as possible to doubt God’s Word.

The Sabbath
As I get in contact with Christians from different denominations wishing to study Scripture with me, I immediately try to launch a Bible study concerning the Sabbath (unless special circumstances make us begin with another subject). The Sabbath will be, as we know, the great subject of contention at the end of time. In addition, this may be their sole opportunity to study about the Sabbath prior to the final struggle. We are aware that when the latter rain is being poured out on the last remnant of God’s adherents, “the people go to their former teachers with the eager inquiry, Are these things so? the ministers (priests) present fables, prophesy smooth things, to soothe their fears and quiet the awakened conscience” (GC, p. 607).

I well remember an encounter with a student of economic science at the Stockholm University. She was a member of the Salvation Army. She wished to study the Bible with me. I suggested we study about the Sabbath. Since she had only taken her New Testament along, she agreed to study this subject from this Testament. I produced (in my view) one strong argument after another stacked with Scripture. However, she would reply to each Scripture with some other Bible verse in support of her view that we are not obliged to keep the Sabbath. This went on for quite a while. She did not seem impressionable to the teaching of the Holy Spirit. What is one to do in a situation like this? If a person does not appear to respond to the Holy Spirit’s conviction, you may be tempted to terminate the discussion. The thing is we cannot know, whether the individual in question is susceptible to the Spirit or not. Only God will know. Hence, it is vital at this critical moment, when a person gives no indication of being responsive and your discussion is seemingly at an end, to pray to God for guidance. In this instance, God gave to me two Bible texts that changed everything. I quoted Revelation 11:19 to her: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament”. Despite her limited knowledge of the Old Testament, she recollected – as I told her about it – that there was an ark of covenant containing God’s Ten Commandments in the tabernacle Moses built according to God’s blueprint. But what is the connection between that Ark of the Covenant in the temple of God in heaven and the Ark of the Covenant existing in the tabernacle raised by Moses? Hebrews 8:5 was the second Scripture God gave me. This text from the Bible explained the connection. The priests of the earthly sanctuary “serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.” As she realised that the Ark of the Covenant containing God’s Ten Commandments in the sanctuary erected by Moses was, indeed, a replica of that Ark of the Covenant containing God’s Ten Commandments now existing in the heavenly sanctuary, she became certain that the seventh day Sabbath is still valid today. This was the most remarkable turnaround I have experienced in situations of this kind. Her heart was not closed to the influence of the Holy Spirit, despite appearances to the contrary. By the way, is there any stronger piece of evidence for the validity of the Sabbath in the New Testament?

Another Bible study with a woman member of the Lutheran Church, who had only been a professing Christian for a couple of years, also taught me a lot. I met her at a Stockholm, Sweden underground/subway station, and we sat down to discuss the Sabbath on a bench, where darkness and cold made our Bible study difficult. I had no Bible of my own with me, and I would, therefore, use hers, which only contained the New Testament. Having only recently become a Christian, she had apparently taken it for granted that Sunday is the correct rest day, to be celebrated in remembrance of Jesus’s resurrection. I looked up Bible text after Bible text in defence of the Sabbath. One thing I realised at once. It took longer to locate certain passages than I had expected. This was especially so because of the darkness, the cold and the people running past us all of the time. When you look up passages of Scripture in your own Bible, you can easily find those particular verses, having looked them up many times before. When you are using another Bible containing a different translation, it is harder. One solution to this dilemma, of course, is to purchase a Bible featuring a different translation and see, whether or not you are able to find your way in it quickly. If conducting a Scripture study with someone, it is vital to be able to quickly locate the texts you are looking for, so that the other person does not tire, or run out of time (if the study has come about without prior planning). During my study with this woman I repeatedly quoted Scriptures, without her commenting even once. I think it was God influencing her, when she quoted from Matthew 5:17, 18, before I myself had quoted these verses to her: “Think not that I am come to destroy (the law or the prophets): I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil… Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (The rest of the chapter clearly indicates that “the law” means God’s Ten Commandments.) Surely, this Bible text must also be considered as one of the strongest in the New Testament in support of the Sabbath. This woman, too, saw that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment still applies.

The Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11) is part of God’s testament which involves all Christians after the death of Jesus, see Galatians 3:15, Hebrews 9:15-18. The Lord’s Supper (including foot washing) is an integral part of this testament, because the Lord’s Supper was “included” in this testament just before Jesus’s death (John chapter 13). Sunday was never “included” in this testament before Jesus’s death. Hence, it is not God’s will that we should keep Sunday holy.

When Jesus in Matthew 24:15-20 calls upon His disciples to pray that their flight from Jerusalem and Judæa in 70 AD, from the attacks of the Romans, should not be on the Sabbath, it is seen that this day was going to be holy even four decades after Jesus’s crucifixion.

All through the Acts of the Apostles there is not a single example of the early Christians keeping Sunday holy. On the contrary, there are several instances of them keeping the Sabbath holy (Acts 13:42-44; 16:13-14; 17:1-3; 18:4, and other places).

God gave the Israel of the Old Testament two signs of the covenant between Him and His people, circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14) and the Sabbath (Exodus 31:15-17). Circumcision ceased to apply, when Jesus died on the cross (Romans 2:28-29). In Acts the 15th chapter there arose deep divisions among the Jewish Christians in the first congregation, when Paul and other leaders of the church taught that circumcision no longer was valid. Let us assume the Sabbath ceased to be valid together with circumcision. Then certainly the same split would have occurred in the first Christian congregation. The fact that nothing is said concerning such a split is strong evidence of the Sabbath’s validity. All kept the Sabbath holy in the first Christian church.

The Investigative Judgment
If we are going to quote Scripture regarding the investigative judgment for Christians looking for such without support from the Old Testament, which ones should we choose? Personally, I feel the following texts would be a sound starting point: “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ”(Romans 14:10). Here, Paul is writing to Christians living decades after the crucifixion of Jesus, but who some time in the future were to be investigated in a court of law, just like himself. II Corinthians 5:9, 10 is another text of this sort: “Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” Here, too, Paul is writing to Christians who lived decades following the death of Jesus and who at one time were going to have their cases gone over in the court of Christ. You cannot deem these two texts to say that the children of God were judged on the cross once and for all, when Jesus died for their sins.

Romans 3:4 describes the very cause for the investigative judgment, namely clearing God of Satan’s accusations against Him (relative how God judges those professing to believe in Him): “let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged” Here it is clearly seen that God Himself is accused, but that He shall be victorious.

The Health Message
As regards the health message, texts like I Corinthians 3:16, 17; I Corinthians 6:19, 20 and I Corinthians 10:31 show that our bodies are God’s possessions and that we may miss out on life eternal, if we “pollute” these possessions of God. There is no reason to believe this was changed on the cross of Golgotha. A pig is as unclean and dangerous to eat post the cross as prior the cross. Revelation 18:2 clearly shows there are still “unclean birds” today, just like in Old Testament times.

It is important to understand that God not only gave us the health message – fresh air, sun light, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, a proper diet, water, trust in God’s power – so that we can serve Him better in healthy bodies, thus living longer and being more successful servants. God also gave us the health message for our thoughts to be clear, enabling us to better resist evil and to make right decisions. In Matthew 27:34 Jesus refused to drink wine mixed with gall for pain relief, in order for His thinking to be sound during those final, vital hours on the cross.

Interestingly, Jesus in Luke 17:27 and 28 only mentions one common denominator for the people living in Noah’s and Lot’s time – food and drink. Does this mean that indulgence in food and drink will be the chief cause of people falling just before the Second Advent?

The arguably most common objection to the health message is taken from Jesus’s words in Mark 7:19, where Jesus pronounces all meats clean. But when you read verses 1-19, you will find that Jesus is not here obliterating the difference between clean and unclean foods. Instead, Jesus is answering (before His disciples) a charge from the Pharisees and the Scribes saying that Jesus’s disciples ate with unclean hands, that is, without washing them, see verses 1-2. The Pharisees held the view that the idea of washing their hands in this fashion was to cleanse any Jew from the impurity resulting from contact made with Gentiles, or with objects from Gentiles. This is upheld by verses 3-5, where the Pharisees and the Scribes said that the washing of hands had to do with the regulations of the elders. Jesus refused this teaching. Later on, in Matthew 15:15, Peter asked Jesus to explain this parable. This shows that the words of Jesus in Mark 7:19, wherein He (Jesus) declared all meats clean should not be understood literally.

Romans 14:2 is another text from Scripture that is often misinterpreted. Here it says that one person has faith strong enough to eat everything, whereas an individual weak in faith only eats vegetables. There were two main groups in the church at Rome. The one group was made up of Jewish Christians who had converted from Judaism. One of the problems of these Jewish Christians was letting go of the ceremonial law, such as circumcision, see Romans 2:17-29. Apparently, they failed to understand they ought to give up the annual Sabbaths and celebrations (see Leviticus 23). Everything points to this being what Paul was alluding to, when he in Romans 14:5 wrote that some consider all days alike, without condemning this behaviour. The other main group in this congregation was Gentile Christians converted from heathenism. The two groups did not get along very well with each other. Some from both sides condemned the others. Gentile Christians condemned the Jewish Christians for eating flesh offered to idols. Although the Gentile Christians now were believers in Jesus, they were still convinced that the eating of such food was coupled to idolatry. Hence, they would not eat this meat for reasons of conscience. The Jewish Christians in Rome, however, had never partaken of meat offered to idols and they had, therefore, no problem consuming meat of that sort. In verses 1-4, Paul wrote that eating this meat was not wrong in itself. What Paul would not have, though, was condemnations issuing from the one group to the other, see verses 10-15. In I Corinthians 8:4-13 Paul wrote concerning meat offered to idols. In verses 9 – 11, Paul admonishes against becoming a stumbling block to the weak by eating this meat, luring the weak to do likewise. This corresponds to the weak brother in Romans 14:1-3. In I Corinthians 8:11, 12 Paul wrote that a weak person like him, for whom Christ had suffered death, might be lost in case his brethren were to consume such flesh, despite their having no problem with their own consciences in this particular. This is mirrored in Romans 14:15, where Paul warned the Jewish Christians not to allow their food to cause the loss of a person, for whom Christ suffered death.

The vision which God gave Peter in Acts 10:9-17 is not about the difference between clean and unclean animals no longer applying, but that God through this vision wanted to show the biased Peter that he was not to call any man (the Gentiles) unholy or unclean (verse 28). Moreover, verse 14 shows that Peter not had ceased to differentiate between clean and unclean animals after the death of Jesus (Peter misunderstood the vision).

The Teaching about the Immortality of the Soul
Seventh-day Adventists who have discussed with professing Christians what happens when we die know that in most Bible translations the words of Jesus to one of the crucified robbers in Luke 23:43 are used as the strongest defence of the teaching about the immortality of the soul: “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” However, the Bible makes it perfectly plain to us that “Today” (shalt thou be with me in paradise) is an incorrect translation. In John 20:17 it can be clearly seen that Jesus told Mary Magdalene that He on the day of His resurrection – two days following His crucifixion – had not yet ascended to the Father. Although the Greek original text opens up for the possibility of translating Luke 23:43 the way quoted above, the original text also makes way for translating this verse the way opted for in the four different translations below – and this more closely aligns itself with the Bible’s message about what happens at death:

“Jesus said to him, Verily I say to you today: You shall be with me in paradise.” The New Testament from original Amaraic texts, by George Lamsa.

“And he said to him – (Verily) I say to you this day: You shall be in paradise.” Rotherham’s Translation.

“And Jesus said to him, Verily I say to you today. You shall be with me in paradise.” Concordant Version.

“Jesus said to him: Verily I say to you today, that you shall be with me in paradise.” Curetonian Manuscript in Syriac. The British Museum.

Only God is immortal (I Timothy 6:16).

The Bible calls the first death a sleep (Matthew 9:18, 24; John 11:11, 14). The righteous will rise to eternal life, the unrighteous will rise to judgment, when these two groups are awakened out of sleep by the voice of Jesus (John 5:26-29). This happens at Jesus’s second and third coming, respectively (His third coming will occur after the one thousand years), see I Thessalonians 4:13-18; I Corinthians 15:51-55 and Revelation 20:4-6.

This is why David has not come to heaven yet (Acts 2:29-34). Because men are judged on “the last day”, the souls of the dead can not live on during death – before the judgment.

The wages of sin is eternal death, but the gift of God through Jesus Christ is eternal life for those who have a living faith in Him (Romans 6:23). Those who have rejected the gospel will be exterminated completely through fire (Matthew 10:28; Hebrews 10:26-27 and Revelation 20:11-15).

In Jude verse 7 it says, according to most Bible translations, that the ungodly inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were affected by “eternal” fire as an example to future generations. From II Peter 2:6 it can be clearly sin that the fire destroying Sodom and Gomorrah burned for just as long as it was nourished (after which only “ashes” were left). In the same way, the ungodly will be consumed by the fire and be no more following the one thousand years.