HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2012 / WINTER / PITCHER
W I N T E R • 2 0 1 2
VOLUME 13, ISSUE 4
Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a soon-to-be-released book by Stephen Pitcher exploring the Adventist paraphrase of the Bible, The Clear Word (TCW). Steve demonstrates how TCW changes the meaning of Scripture by incorporating Adventist doctrine into the wording of the biblical text. While TCW is not an “official” Adventist Bible, it is a paraphrase written by Jack Blanco when he was the chairman of the department of religion at Southern Adventist University. It is published by the Adventist publishing house Review and Herald Publishing Association, and it is distributed by the Adventist Book Centers and marketed both online and in their stores as a Bible. This article illustrates the contradiction between Adventist teaching and biblical truth by comparing “Sabbath texts” from various versions of TCW (including The Easy English Clear Word (TEECW) and The Clear Word for Kids (TCWfK) with the same passages from the English Standard Version (ESV) of Scripture.
The seventh-day Sabbath is one of the distinguishing marks of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In fact, Sabbath-keeping has been at the heart of the “Adventist message” since the 1840’s after Ellen White received a vision confirming that seventh-day Sabbath observance is a continuing mandate. Consequently, Adventism teaches that the Sabbath was given first to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and subsequently to all mankind.
Fundamental belief number 20 tells us the Adventist position on the keeping of the Sabbath day:
The beneficent Creator, after the six days of Creation, rested on the seventh day and instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of Creation. The fourth commandment of God’s unchangeable law requires the observance of this seventh-day Sabbath as the day of rest, worship, and ministry in harmony with the teaching and practice of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of delightful communion with God and one another. It is a symbol of our redemption in Christ, a sign of our sanctification, a token of our allegiance, and a foretaste of our eternal future in God’s kingdom. The Sabbath is God’s perpetual sign of His eternal covenant between Him and His people. Joyful observance of this holy time from evening to evening, sunset to sunset, is a celebration of God’s creative and redemptive acts.1
This fundamental belief is derived from Ellen White’s great controversy motif which she developed in her book The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan. In this book she explains the Adventists’ visceral tie to the seventh-day Sabbath:
The enemies of God’s law [those who worship on Sunday], from the ministers down to the least among them, have a new conception of truth and duty. Too late they see that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God. Too late they see the true nature of their spurious sabbath and the sandy foundation upon which they have been building. They find that they have been fighting against God.2
The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false sabbath in compliance with the law of the state, contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God.3
Not only did Ellen White say Sabbath must be kept, but she also taught that there was a “spurious” Sabbath that had been established by man. She denounces this “Sabbath” as the work of Satan in this Bible Echo article:
By thus disregarding the claim of God, ministers who claim to preach the gospel are echoing the words told to Adam and Eve in Eden, that if they transgressed the law they would not die, but would be as gods, knowing good and evil. By their influence and example, these false shepherds have caused a lie to be received as a truth. With persevering energy they have labored (sic) to establish a spurious sabbath, and this man-made institution has received the homage of the greater part of the world.4
These are strong and divisive words. E. G. White is claiming that modern ministers are repeating Satan’s lie and seductive promise to Adam and Eve by endorsing worshiping on Sunday.
Sabbath history
With such a strong message regarding the keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath within Adventism, one would expect The Clear Word to skew “Sabbath passages” to make them appear to teach Sabbath-keeping as an eternal command. Before we compare texts, however, let’s look at the Bible to see the first place Scripture refers to resting on the seventh day, Genesis 2:2-3:
And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
No command is given to Adam and Eve regarding the keeping of the seventh day as a holy day. (In fact, the first command for Israel to keep the Sabbath day holy occurs in Exodus 16 and accompanies God’s giving them manna just after their exodus from Egypt.) In Genesis 2, however, the word “rested” can be translated ceased, finished or completed: God finished the work he had set out to do. God did not need rest as we think of rest; rather, He had completed his creative work, and that creating is what God “ceased” from doing. Notice also that the seventh day is not bounded by the framework of “evening and morning, the seventh day” as were the six days of creation. God’s rest from His work of creation began after creation was completed, and that cessation continues to this day.
Adventists tie the fourth commandment to the Genesis 2 passage and argue that the Sabbath was created on the seventh day. The Sabbath, therefore, is a “sacred day” for all time and is a “memorial of creation”. In fact, Scripture says creation ended with day six, not day seven. In other words, God did not create the Sabbath on the seventh day. It was His ceasing—His rest—that was holy. The fourth commandment refers to creation to remind Israel of God’s finished work and to give them a shadow of entering His rest. Contrary to Adventist teaching, the Sabbath has never been about “creation”. It has always been about entering God’s finished creative work.
Old Testament Distortions
In the light of these biblical facts, let’s compare Exodus 20:11 from The Clear Word with the same passage from Scripture:
Exodus 20:11
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
I made the sky, the earth, and the seas in six days and rested the seventh day. I blessed the Sabbath and made it special.
The Clear Word
Because in six days, I, the Lord your God, created the earth, the sky, the seas and everything in them, and on the seventh day I rested in the joy of having made it all. That’s why I blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy, so you can rest and rejoice with me.
English Standard Version
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“…so you can rest and rejoice with me” is an addition to the text that is not implied in the Bible. According to Ellen White’s great controversy theme, the paradigm that shapes Adventist theology, Satan has accused God of giving an unfair law to his created beings. Thus, according to the great controversy motif, by giving people the seventh-day Sabbath, God is giving humanity “holy time” as a test of their loyalty to God. If they keep it holy, they will vindicate God and His form of government through their honoring of the seventh day.
By the time Jesus returns, therefore, God’s people will have become perfectly obedient to the law, and their keeping of the seventh day will be the mark that identifies the saved, while worshiping on Sunday will be the mark of the beast identifying the lost. In full agreement with this Adventist paradigm, Blanco makes breaking the Sabbath an issue of “treason” in Exodus 31:14:
Exodus 31:14
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
The Sabbath is holy, and anyone who breaks it by working on that day doesn’t really love Me.
The Clear Word
The Sabbath is holy, and anyone who desecrates it by working on that day will be put to death, since that would be an act of treason against God’s government.
English Standard Version
You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
This passage explained to Israel how an Israelite was to treat the Sabbath—their sign of accepting God’s covenant with them at Sinai. Further, it clarified that Sabbath was holy for them, and Israelites who profaned the Sabbath would be killed and cut off from the nation. Blanco, however, interprets the passage to say that the seventh day is intrinsically holy and states that not keeping the seventh day is treason against “God’s government”. Moreover, TEECW and TCWfK specifically teach that anyone who works on the Sabbath day does not love God. Blanco’s implications are not found in the scriptural passage.
The Sabbath was specifically for Israel and was their ongoing sign of being loyal to God’s Sinai covenant with them; it was not for the pagan nations that surrounded Israel. Yet, according to Adventist doctrine, the seventh-day Sabbath is perpetual for all time, for all people, and for all eternity when the redeemed will congregate on the Sabbath day in heaven and on the new Earth. In keeping with this Adventist understanding, therefore, Blanco further distorts the meaning and purpose of “Sabbath” by changing “Israel” to “my people” and altering the reason for observing the day:
Exodus 31:16
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
The Sabbath is a day for everyone to be happy because they are part of My family.
The Clear Word
My people are to keep the Sabbath, celebrating it as a sign that they belong to me.
English Standard Version
Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever.
The Sabbath is part of the Old Covenant that God made with Israel and is not part of the New Covenant which God makes unconditionally with those who believe in His Son. The New Testament tells us that Jesus is the mediator of a completely new covenant which is not based on law or human obedience but on the death of a Perfect Sacrifice for human sin. Jesus—not the angels, not Moses, and not the people—keeps and mediates this new covenant, and He, not a day, is our Rest.
Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death [the death of Christ] has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant (Heb. 9:15).
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Mat. 11:28-29).
Moreover, in Exodus 35 Blanco adds to Moses’ description of the Sabbath. In the Bible, the Sabbath is described as a day of rest. It is not a day of congregational worship, yet we find this idea inserted into Exodus 35:2:
Exodus 35:2
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
He said to them, “You have six days to do all your work, but the Sabbath belongs to the Lord. It’s a time for rest and worship.”
The Clear Word
You have six days to do all your work, but the seventh day is mine. It is a holy day, a Sabbath of rest and worship. Whoever rebels and does unnecessary work that day is to be put to death.
English Standard Version
Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.
Blanco’s description in TCW of the Sabbath as not only a day of rest but also of worship supports the Adventist practice of Sabbath church attendance. Additionally, Blanco has substantively changed the meaning of God’s original command that Israel was not to work on Sabbath. In this same verse he changed the word “any” to “unnecessary”. This rendering allows for work which Adventists identify as “necessary” as well as allowing Adventists to determine what work is not “necessary”. Within Adventist tradition, “helping the sick” is necessary; therefore doctors and nurses are permitted to work their regular hospital shifts on the Sabbath because they are carrying on the “healing ministry of Christ”. Other public service jobs such as law enforcement or equipment maintenance at the power plant, for example, are not permitted on Sabbath. People who become Adventists who have held jobs that required Sabbath work (besides directly serving the sick as a nurse or doctor), however, are required to change their schedules or give up their jobs in order to keep the Sabbath holy.
In the next verse, Exodus 35:3, Blanco further interprets the biblical command:
Exodus 35:3
The Clear Word
Do not go out to gather wood to make a fire to cook for yourselves that day.
English Standard Version
You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.
Blanco changes the command from a prohibition against lighting a fire to a prohibition against gathering wood and cooking. Within Adventism, it is not the making of a fire that is prohibited but the work of gathering wood with which to make that fire. Furthermore, Adventists also have a tradition of not preparing food on the Sabbath except to warm food which has been previously cooked. Adventists readily light fires in their fireplaces or light campfires at their youth camps on Sabbath, but they gather the wood for those fires before sundown on Friday night.
Leviticus 24:8 is another verse Blanco has distorted significantly:
Leviticus 24:8
The Clear Word
Every Friday evening, at the beginning of the Sabbath, set out fresh bread before me. This is to be done for generations to come.
English Standard Version
Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the LORD regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever.
The Bible explicitly states that Aaron was to set out the bread on the Sabbath day, not on Friday evening. Moreover, this Sabbath ritual was to be “a covenant forever.” This ritual, however, ended with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70 AD. In other words, it was a “covenant forever” as long as the Old Covenant and the temple were in place. Adventists, though, find Scripture verses that refer to the Sabbath as being a sign “forever,” and they use those verses to argue that seventh-day Sabbath-keeping is an eternal moral requirement.
In this verse Blanco has eliminated the troublesome phrase “covenant forever” that clearly applies to an old covenant ritual, and he has also suggested that Aaron merely “set out” food previously prepared as the Sabbath began—a practice Adventists follow for their Sabbath meals—instead of allowing the text to say Aaron did the work of “arranging” the bread on the Sabbath day. He has thus changed this text to support Adventist practices instead of allowing it to state what God commanded Aaron to do.
New Testament Distortions
In Romans 14:1-9 we find the well-known passage about not causing our brother to stumble by what we eat or which days we do or do not keep holy. Blanco, however, completely changes the meaning of the passage. Here is his rendering of verse 5:
Romans 14:5
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
The same rule applies to special days. One person thinks he has to keep all the Jewish festivals, and another doesn’t. People need to make up their own minds.
The Clear Word
The same thing applies to religious festivals. One person thinks he has to keep every Jewish festival, while another thinks those days are no different from other days. About nonessentials like these, everyone needs to make up his own mind.
English Standard Version
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
Scripture allows a person to make up his own mind about holy days including whether or not to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. Blanco, however, changes the text to refer only to Jewish feast days and specifically calls them “nonessential”. He is careful not to allow the text to suggest that a person has the option to make up his own mind about the seventh-day Sabbath since that day is a non-negotiable requirement within Adventism.
In the book of Galatians, Paul takes the Galatian believers to task for adopting the practice of observing days as the result of pressure from the Judaizers, otherwise known as the party of the circumcision. Interestingly, Blanco’s paraphrase of Galatians 4:10-11 became more cultic as he moved from his first New Testament paraphrase (1990) to the latest Clear Word version (2003):
Galatians 4:10-11
The New Testament: A Devotional Paraphrase to Stimulate Faith and Growth
Right now you’re giving a saving significance to all kinds of special days, months, seasons, and years. I’m really worried about you. And I’m wondering whether all my work for you has been for nothing.
The Clear Word
You’re putting a saving significance on observing all kinds of religious holidays, months, seasons and years. I’m really worried about you, and wondering whether all my work for you has been in vain.
English Standard Version
You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
At first, Blanco refers to “days” as “special days”, but in the current edition of The Clear Word he uses the phrase “all kinds of religious holidays” which avoids the issue of “days” completely, thus eliminating the likelihood that the reader will understand the text to refer to the seventh-day Sabbath.
Next we examine Colossians 2:16-17. Paul specifically used the word “Sabbath” in this passage, but Blanco does away with the weekly Sabbath day with the stroke of his pen.
Colossians 2:16-17
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to go through certain rituals, eat certain foods, keep certain feasts, or observe extra sabbaths to be saved. All these things pointed forward to Jesus. So now they’re meaningless.
The Clear Word
Don’t let anyone control your life by giving you a set of ceremonial rules about what to eat, what to drink and which monthly festivals or special sabbaths to keep. All these rules about ceremonial days were given as a shadow of the reality to come and that reality is Jesus Christ.
English Standard Version
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Blanco makes a false distinction between ceremonial days and the weekly Sabbath. In this passage Paul is referring to the three categories of holy days given to Israel in the law: festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths. “Festivals” refer to the annual feast days such as Passover and Pentecost. Monthly celebrations of the new moon and the weekly celebration of the Sabbath complete the three-part sequence which defines the categories of holy days found in both the Old and New Testaments.
Moreover, Blanco’s rendering in the TEECW and TCWfK uses the phrase “observe extra sabbaths to be saved.” This wording implies there are basic sabbaths that must be observed in order for one to be saved, that “extra sabbaths” are not required and are not the “essential” weekly seventh-day Sabbath. In other words, Blanco’s wording allows for a seventh-day Sabbath requirement and subtly but profoundly reinforces Adventist dogma.
Sabbatismos
In order to understand Blanco’s tampering with Hebrews 3:7-4:11, we first look at Jesus’ declaration in Matthew 11:28 where He says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus here identifies Himself as the actual Source of “rest” for His people. In Hebrews 3 and 4 the author tells of the stubbornness of Israel who did not enter into the rest that God offered them because of their unbelief. Hebrews 3:7-4:11 not only tells their story but also shows that we, today, can miss entering this sabbath-like rest of God’s finished work that is available through faith in Christ.
Hebrews 4:9 is the verse where the author uses the Greek word sabbatismos which means a “sabbath-like rest”. This verse is the only place this word occurs in all of Scripture, and it does not mean “Sabbath-keeping”. It refers in context to the rest in God’s finished work that we enter through Christ “Today” when we believe. Blanco, however, changes the meaning of this verse and inserts that the seventh-day Sabbath is intended for each generation to have as a sign.
Hebrews 4:9
The Clear Word
So there still remains the offer of Sabbath rest in God that He intends for each generation to have, of which the seventh day is a sign.
English Standard Version
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
Another passage which Blanco has completely changed is Revelation 22:14. Since Adventist theology demands observance of the Sabbath and the Ten Commandments in order to be saved, Blanco has added keeping the commandments (a phrase which always refers to the Decalogue inside Adventism) to the washing of the robes in verse 14:
Revelation 22:14
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
Those who love Me and have lived by My commandments will be blessed. They have a right to eat of the tree of life, so they will enter the gates of the city.
The Clear Word
Blessed are those who have washed their robes in my blood and lived by my commandments. This is what gives them the right to the Tree of Life and to enter through the gates into the city.
English Standard Version
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
In the King James and the New King James versions of the Bible, this verse says, “Blessed are they that do His commandments.” In almost all other major translations, however, this passage reads, “Blessed are those who wash their robes.” The difference between these two renderings derives from the underlying manuscript “family” from which the passage was translated. Since the 17th century, earlier and more accurate manuscripts have been discovered. Blanco illegitimately combines the two phrases. No manuscript ever suggested that salvation depended upon keeping the law, and certainly none combines commandment-keeping and washing robes in this verse. Blanco has given readers “another gospel” instead of the new covenant gospel of faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Revelation 1:10 is another text from which Blanco has removed the meaning God gave. This verse is where John describes receiving his vision of Christ. Blanco has added the Sabbath to the verse and has removed the words “the Lord’s day”.
Revelation 1:10
The Easy English Clear Word and The Clear Word for Kids
One Sabbath, the day belonging to the Lord, I went to worship by the ocean. Suddenly the Holy Spirit came on me. I heard a voice behind me that sounded like a trumpet.
The Clear Word
On the Sabbath of the Lord I went to the island’s rocky shore to worship. Suddenly the Spirit took control of me, and I heard a voice behind me that sounded as loud as a trumpet.
English Standard Version
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.
The term “the Lord’s day” has consistently been used since the earliest of the church Fathers as a reference to Sunday, the first day of the week, as distinct from the Sabbath. Ignatius and other early church authors used this phrase to refer to the first day of the week as demonstrated in this quotation:
If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, …5
John, a Jew who became an apostle of the risen Christ, would not have confused “Sabbath” with “the Lord’s day”. Had he meant the seventh day, he would have written “Sabbath” as he did in his gospel when he wrote about Jesus’ sign of healing which He performed on the Sabbath (Jn. 5:1-17). Revelation 1:10 is certainly not referring to the seventh day.
Conclusion
These are only a few of the passages that reveal how The Clear Word is guilty of twisting Scripture to make sure that the seventh-day Sabbath is presented as mandatory for all people in order for them to be saved. For Adventists, the seventh-day Sabbath is a moral, not a ceremonial law, and therefore it is binding on all believers throughout the ages. Blanco has unabashedly twisted those passages dealing with the Sabbath day so that they agree with Adventist theology.
Endnotes
- Seventh-day Adventists Believe, 2nd Ed., Ministerial Association, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2005, p. 281.
- White, Ellen G, The Great Controversy, p. 640.
- Ibid., p. 605.
- White, Ellen G., Bible Echo, July 27, 1896, para. 1.
- The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, Ch. 9, Let Us Live With Christ, p. 131.
Copyright 2012 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised December 17, 2012. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
Stephen Pitcher became a Christian at age 17 through the ministry of Young Life and was baptized in a Baptist church. He later converted to Adventism which he left after 18 years. He currently attends Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Redlands, California, where he is a member. He continues a 37-year study of cults, world religions, and the occult from his home in Yucaipa, California.