When Moses delivered the great Shema to Israel, he planted a seed that would take millennia to fully blossom:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.”
Deuteronomy 6:4–6
Notice what Moses emphasises: “These words… shall be in thine heart.” Not merely on stone tablets. Not in phylacteries bound to the arm or inscribed on doorposts. The law was always meant to be an invitation to relationship, not merely a code of conduct.
This raises an important question: If the law was always meant for the heart, why was it written on stone at all?
Consider this remarkable statement from Patriarchs and Prophets:
“If man had kept the law of God, as given to Adam after his fall, preserved by Noah, and observed by Abraham, there would have been no necessity for the ordinance of circumcision. And if the descendants of Abraham had kept the covenant, of which circumcision was a sign, they would never have been seduced into idolatry, nor would it have been necessary for them to suffer a life of bondage in Egypt; they would have kept God’s law in mind, and there would have been no necessity for it to be proclaimed from Sinai or engraved upon the tables of stone. And had the people practiced the principles of the Ten Commandments, there would have been no need of the additional directions given to Moses.”
PP 364.2
The letter of the law – written, codified, engraved – was proclaimed because it had been entirely forgotten from the minds and hearts of the people. The stone tablets were a concession to human forgetfulness, not God’s ideal way of revealing His law to the human race.
And even as He gave the law at Sinai, God expressed what He truly desired:
“O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!” Deuteronomy 5:29
Deuteronomy 5:29
God’s longing was not for external compliance but for hearts transformed by love. The letter was necessary; but the letter was never the goal.
The Single Principle Behind All Commandments
When a lawyer tested Jesus by asking which commandment was greatest, Christ gave an answer that should have ended all legalistic fence-building forever:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 22:37–40
Every commandment – whether concerning Sabbath, diet, marriage, or anything else – is simply an expression of love. The Apostle John confirms this: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). And Paul adds: “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10).
If love is the fulfilling of the law, then any approach to the law that produces burden, exclusion, or bondage – rather than love – has missed the point entirely.
Building Fences Around the Law
But the religious leaders of Jesus’ day took a different approach. Rather than trust the Spirit to write the law on hearts, they determined to protect the law with a fence of additional rules. This practice came to be described by the rabbinical principle asu syag laTorah (“make a fence around the Torah”), stated in Pirkei Avot 1:1, where the Men of the Great Assembly taught that protective rules should surround each commandment.
The logic seemed sound: if you add prohibitions around a commandment, then even if someone fails to keep the fence, they still won’t break the actual law – like a wall that keeps a person from falling into a pit.
By the time Jesus and His disciples walked through the grain fields on Sabbath, the simple act of plucking heads of grain was classified as “reaping” – a violation of the fence of the Sabbath law, and therefore treated as a violation of the oral traditions of the church.
These fences multiplied. The Oral Law – what Jesus called “the traditions of men” (Mark 7:8) – grew into an elaborate system of regulations. Mark provides a glimpse: “For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly” (Mark 7:3). This wasn’t hygiene; it was fence-building around the laws of ceremonial cleanliness.
The tragedy is that these fences, intended to protect the law, actually obscured it. The weightier matters – justice, mercy, and faithfulness – were buried under mountains of human tradition.
How Did Jesus Magnify The Law?
When Jesus came, He did something unexpected. He magnified the law – not by adding more rules, but by first removing the human traditions that had obscured it, and then by revealing its deeper spiritual meaning.
On the traditions, Jesus was devastating:
“Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition… Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.”
Mark 7:9, 13
The fences, He declared, had actually nullified the very commandments they were meant to protect. A man could claim his resources were “Corban” (dedicated to the Temple) and thereby excuse himself from caring for aging parents – technically keeping a lesser law but transgressing the greater law. It seemed to them – the letter was preserved; but in reality, the spirit of God’s law was fundamentally violated.
But Jesus didn’t stop at removal. He amplified the spirit of the law, revealing a glory the letter could not contain:
- The Torah says, “You shall not murder.” Jesus adds: “Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment” (Matt 5:21–22).
- The Torah says, “You shall not commit adultery.” Jesus adds: “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery” (Matt 5:27–28).
This was revelation of the law’s true depth – that every outward act begins in the heart, and that God’s concern has always been with the heart.
Modern Fences
With this historical context in view, we must honestly ask: Has SDARM engaged in a similar pattern of fence-building?
Consider what has happened with the three doctrines we have examined on this website:
On remarriage: Scripture provides a single clear basis for divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery. Ellen White’s writings, when read in context, align with this biblical position. Yet SDARM has erected a fence: no remarriage after divorce, regardless of circumstances. The fence is intended to protect the sanctity of marriage – but it also has the effect of condemning innocent parties to lifelong celibacy or exclusion, in cases where Scripture itself would not condemn them.
On vegetarianism: Scripture provides no “Thus saith the Lord” requiring vegetarianism for church membership. Ellen White explicitly counselled against making flesh-eating a test of fellowship – repeatedly, publicly, and over decades. Yet SDARM has erected a fence: vegetarianism as a baptismal requirement. The fence is intended to protect the principle of temperance – but its focus is so narrow that it has a tendency to undermine the very principle it seeks to protect. When the bar is set at vegetarianism, members naturally view meeting the requirement as the destination rather than a starting point. Having cleared the fence, many feel they have “arrived” at health reform and pursue no further reforms. Meanwhile, the broader dimensions of temperance – adequate rest, regular exercise, management of stress, avoidance of overeating and other harmful substances, and care for mental health, etc. may remain largely unaddressed. The test inadvertently truncates the journey it was meant to advance.
On belief in Ellen White’s prophetic gift prior to baptism: Scripture teaches that we should test prophetic claims before accepting them. Ellen White herself repeatedly counselled that belief in her visions should not be made a test of fellowship – that new believers who have good reasons for doubting should be given time to investigate and reach conviction from within the community, not as a precondition for entering it. The pioneers consistently maintained this position. Yet SDARM has erected a fence: belief in Ellen White’s inspiration as a baptismal requirement. The fence is intended to protect confidence in the prophetic gift – but it keeps “few precious souls” outside the church whom Ellen White said should not be excluded.
In each case, the pattern is the same: a legitimate concern (protecting marriage, promoting health reform, honouring the prophetic gift) is transformed into a rigid requirement that goes beyond what Scripture and the Testimonies authorise – and in some cases, contradicts what they explicitly teach.
This is fence-building. And fences that contradict the counsel they’re meant to protect are not safeguards; they are violations.
The Ministry of the Letter vs. The Ministry of the Spirit
Paul addressed a distinction for the ministry in words of deep meaning:
“[God] has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
2 Corinthians 3:6 ESV
What does Paul mean by the letter that kills? In the following verses, Paul speaks of the “ministry of death” – the ministry of the letter – as that which was “written and engraved in stones” at Sinai. This was the law of God itself, the Ten Commandments. Paul is not denigrating the law; he acknowledges it came “with glory” (v. 7). But he insists that this glory – the glory of the letter – was meant to be temporary, destined to fade before a greater glory.
What is this greater glory? Paul answers:
“Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.”
2 Corinthians 3:7–11 ESV
Two profound truths emerge: the ministry of the Spirit, of righteousness exceeds the ministry of death in glory, and the glory of the letter is temporary while the glory of the Spirit is permanent – and far greater. Religion that focuses on the wording of restrictions are the old covenant ministry of death. There might be some value in that – in as much as there is some glory in the letter of the law, but such glory fades in the much greater glory of the Spirit.
But why is the letter of the Ten Commandments called the ministry of death? Paul explains elsewhere:
“For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”
Galatians 3:21, 22
The law as expressed in letters does only one thing – it condemns all. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “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. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets” (Romans 3:20, 21).
This is why the ministry of righteousness and of the Spirit exceeds the ministry of the letter of the law in glory – because it ministers the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Lord to our hearts, something the letter of the law could never do – and the glory of Christ’s righteous life makes all the glory of the letter of the law entirely ineffective.
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14 KJV
How does this greater glory transform us?
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:17–18 ESV
The Ten Commandments were glorious. But its glory pales before the glory of Christ. The letter points to righteousness; Christ is righteousness. The letter condemns sin; Christ removes sin. The letter shows us what we should be; Christ transforms us into what we can be. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives us life.
This is the ministry to which we are called. Not a ministry of adding more definitions, more restrictions, more detailed fences around the law – but a ministry of revealing Christ, whose Spirit writes the law on hearts and produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such fruit, Paul declares, “there is no law” (Galatians 5:23).
Let us be careful not to take a principle – temperance, marital fidelity, respect for the prophetic gift – and codify our applications of that principle into rigid rules, then enforce those rules as though they were the principle itself. When this happens, anyone who questions the rule is treated as though they are attacking the principle.
But rules are not principles. Church legislation is not spiritual law. And while we focus on requiring outward conformity to the letter we will never meet the requirements of the life-giving Spirit of the Lord.
“For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Romans 7: 14; 8:1, 2
Repairers of the Breach
The prophet Isaiah describes God’s end-time people in striking terms:
“And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”
Isaiah 58:12
God’s people are called to raise up foundations – the foundations God established in Eden, where His law of love was written in the hearts of his children. Every breach of every commandment begins there, in the heart. And how shall we repair this breach?
Shall we do it by focusing on the letter of the law and building fences of additional restrictions that shield us from even approaching transgression? Shall we add more definitions, more requirements, more detailed specifications to our statements of faith?
This is not what God has called His ministers of the new covenant to do. The work of restoration is not accomplished by multiplying rules but by inviting “the Lord of glory” into our hearts. It is not accomplished by erecting barriers but by revealing glory. It is not accomplished by emphasising the letter but by ministering in the Spirit.
Conclusion: Beholding the Glory
The glory that will lighten the world (Revelation 18:1) is not the glory of detailed doctrinal formulations or meticulous behavioural codes. It is the glory of the Lord – reflected in the faces and lives of those who, with unveiled face, behold Him and are transformed from one degree of glory to another.
This transformation does not happen through fence-keeping. It happens through Spirit-inspired beholding.
The church isn’t a club with arbitrary membership rules – it’s the body of Christ with a mission to reach the world with the gospel and proclaim its full glory. This mission requires us to think carefully about how we minister – are we engaged in the ministry of death or of life? When our ministry is devoid of the Spirit, we will inevitably focus on the letter of the law and risk building fences where Christ intended doors – no matter how sincere our intentions.
Greater emphasis must be placed on nurturing inner transformation rather than enforcing external conformity. God has always desired heart change that produces obedience – it is the Spirit that gives life, not the letter.
Our calling, then, is clear. We must examine every fence we have built and ask: Does this barrier come from Scripture together with the Testimony of Jesus? Or have we, in our zeal to protect the law, actually buried it?
Where we have added requirements God has not authorised, we must have the courage to remove them. Where we have built fences that contradict the very testimonies they claim to protect, we must acknowledge our error. Where we have emphasised the letter at the expense of the Spirit, we must reorient our ministry toward Christ.
Romans 7:6 KJV
“But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”
And it is the Spirit – the Spirit of love, of freedom, of transformation – that will prepare a people for the coming of the Lord.