What if, of all things, piety, obedience, and religious rituals could become a wall that separates people from the One they are actually seeking? It is not God who keeps people at a distance—people themselves can cling to this separation through rituals and ceremonies. But Jesus came to tear down precisely this wall. By Alonzo Jones

Reading time: 12 minutes

Jesus did not come to revoke the words of the patriarchs and prophets, for He Himself had spoken through them. All the precious gems of truth come from Him. Yet these priceless jewels had been set in the wrong settings. Their beautiful light had been put to the service of error. People used them to adorn tradition and superstition. But Jesus came to remove them from those false settings and set them in the frame of truth.

What better example could one cite of pious but powerless forms than the ancient people of Israel with their religious services? (2 Timothy 3:5, Elberfelder—literally, “who have a form of godliness but deny its power”) … Today we live in a period of world history where the same curse—a pious, powerless religion of forms—plagues the world. The Bible provides a healing antidote to this, and this teaching remains Jesus’ light and truth even today.

What freed people back then from this hypocritical, formalistic faith also frees us today from the meaningless monotony of forms and ceremonies, from ceremonialism and the ceremonial law, which is nothing other than ceremonialism …

What freed people back then from this? “For He is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility (Hfa: tore down the wall between them) by abolishing in His flesh the enmity—the law of commandments expressed in ordinances [the ceremonies, the powerless forms]—so that He might create the two into one new humanity in Himself and establish peace.” (Ephesians 2:14–15)

Only when the people of that time gave up all their interests in the universe in favor of Jesus Christ and allowed Him to remove the hostility did He free them from ceremonialism. Nothing else will free us from it today either. Nothing else will free Seventh-day Adventists from following the same path of the old ceremonial law …

Why was there a division between Jews and Gentiles? Why did they have a form of godliness but lack power? What was going on with Jesus’ disciples in Samaria? … Because they put the self in God’s place, they not only misused the worship services and forms of worship ordained by God, but also added a whole mountain of ceremonies and their own additions … Why?—Because they wanted to be saved and made righteous. But there is no form or ceremony that can save a person, even if God Himself had ordained it … Thousands are still mistaken on this point. Ceremonialism—these are pious, powerless forms; if you will, the ceremonial law that was abolished when the enmity in the flesh was abolished—the falling of the wall!

Pious forms as a substitute for faith

Because Jesus Christ did not dwell in their hearts through living faith, people sought salvation through other things. Because they did not seek salvation in Jesus, they did all those other things in order to be saved through them. In this way, people misused God’s means of help—the Ten Commandments, circumcision, sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings, sin offerings —everything God had given for other purposes was taken and used to attain salvation and to be made righteous through their observance.

Yet people could find neither righteousness nor inner peace nor satisfaction of the heart in them, because these things are not to be found there… To be sure of one’s cause, one had to break down what God had commanded and said into ten thousand hair-splitting and sophistical details, so that one might truly hit the mark and possess the righteousness one sought. Yet none of this brought satisfaction. People still found no peace. Therefore, even more inventions had to be added… From A to Z, it was all ceremonialism…

Only trust in Jesus Christ can make people righteous and keep them righteous. But that trust was lacking. Jesus did not live through living faith in their hearts; otherwise, His virtuous nature could have shone through the means ordained by God… By trying in this way… to become righteous, they missed the mark. The “self” erected the “wall,” the “dividing wall”—meaningless demands…

Did God erect this wall?—No, people did. And on what foundation did it rest?—On the “self.” And this “self”… is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be (Romans 8:7). We read that the disciples “thought they had to show their loyalty to their people by harboring hostility toward the Samaritans.” (Ellen White, General Conference Bulletin, March 5, 1895, para. 10) Did they learn hostility?—No, they harbored it and clung to it.

How could the wall come down?

How, then, was Jesus able to successfully bring down and destroy this wall, which was founded on hostility and was an expression of the self? Does one tear down a wall or another structure by starting at the top and removing one stone after another, or by taking out a stone here and there in the middle? – No. If you want to bring the whole thing down, you destroy the foundation; then the wall is finished, it falls, and the building collapses.

Obedience Out of Fear or Trust?

… Ceremonialism is just as bad for Seventh-day Adventists today as it was for any Pharisee from Judea back then. Anyone who calls themselves a Christian without Jesus, anyone who has the form of godliness without its power, is practicing ceremonialism. That is the perfectly natural result of hostility.

Whenever and wherever hostility reigns, ceremonialism is found. One is freed from it only when one is freed from hostility … In some places it manifests as a boundary between people of different skin colors; in others, as a boundary between nationalities …

If fully developed, ceremonialism would create as many boundaries in the third angel’s message as there are nationalities and skin colors on earth. Yet in Jesus Christ, such a thing cannot exist. But if we are not in Jesus Christ, we are not in the third angel’s message either. In Jesus, enmity was abolished… Yet we will only realize this—even as Seventh-day Adventists—when enmity is cast aside through living faith in Jesus, when we surrender our will to Him and receive the living, divine image…

The active clinging to enmity will only disappear when it is crucified and buried with the Messiah. Otherwise, it keeps pressing in: “I have to do something. I’m not good enough. God can’t love me. He isn’t loving enough to care about someone as wicked as I am. I have to do something to pave the way for Him. I have to do something to break down the wall between Him and me and make myself good enough so that He’ll be favorably disposed toward me. That’s why I must and will keep the Ten Commandments. I will enter into a covenant and make a deal with him.” And then one goes to extreme lengths …

If you don’t want to do something, you still have to do it because it’s right and you want to do the right thing. So you sign a covenant, make a vow. “Now that I’ve signed the covenant, of course I have to stick to it. It’s no fun for me—it’s an extremely unpleasant yoke—but I’ve signed the covenant after all, and now I have to keep my vow.” – Ceremonialism …

When we trust in Jesus as our personal Savior, when true faith dwells in our hearts and reigns there, we do not need to force ourselves to do anything through vows. No. The heart will always joyfully exclaim: ““To do Your will, O my God, is my desire, and Your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:9)

Jesus Christ has torn down the wall. In His flesh, He has abolished the enmity that fights against faith and keeps people away from God. He has abolished enmity. For it keeps people away from Him and substitutes something else in its place. Yet nothing under the sun, in heaven or on earth—or anywhere else—can save us except Jesus Christ alone and our trust in Him…

If anyone hopes to be saved by what he calls faith in Jesus plus something else, he is still practicing the same old ceremonialism; he still harbors the same hostility. No one is saved by faith in Jesus plus anything else …

Everything a person does without Jesus is tainted by selfishness and sin. Anyone who seeks to be saved by their own works, by keeping the commandments, is attempting the impossible. Of course, no one who breaks God’s commandments can be saved, but their obedience should not come from within themselves. Jesus must work within them to will and to act according to His good pleasure. If we could save ourselves through our own works, there would be something within us of which we could boast. But we can only receive the strength for righteous works through the grace of Jesus.

Repentance as a Substitute for Faith?

Many mistakenly believe that repentance is sufficient to pay for sin. But that cannot be. Repentance cannot be accepted as atonement. Even repentance cannot be experienced without the influence of God’s Spirit. Grace must be given; the atoning sacrifice must be offered for a person before he can truly repent…

Repentance comes from Jesus just as much as forgiveness does. Without Jesus’ help, the sinner cannot even take the first step toward repentance. “Whom God forgives, He first leads to repentance.” (Bible Commentary 7, 974; Bible Commentary, 532; see also Acts 5:31) Nothing—absolutely nothing—but trust in Jesus alone can save the soul and keep it saved.

Where does God dwell today?

The Israelites had a major problem: In their eyes, the LORD was so far away that they even interpreted everything God had given them to prove His great nearness as a sign of His distance. The sacrifices, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the worship services—all of these were understood by the Jewish teachers and the great multitude as pointing to the Messiah, who was to come sometime in the distant future …

I’m not sure if Seventh-day Adventists have moved beyond the view that these things pointed to a distant Messiah. I’m not saying that Adventists think Jesus is far away. But I fear that they have not yet broken free from the idea that the sanctuary and its services, the sacrifices, and the offerings pointed to a Messiah who was to come in the distant future.

Of course, all of this pointed to Jesus—but to the near Jesus, not the distant one. Through all these things, God wanted to point to the Jesus who dwells in their hearts—not to the one who would come 1,800 years later, not to the one who is as far away as heaven is from earth, but to Jesus in their everyday experience. When we grasp this idea and then study the sanctuary and the sacrifices—in short, the Gospel according to Leviticus—we find Jesus there as a living, present Savior in everyday life, and that is who He still is for us today.

We can find the Gospel—the Christian faith—in the Five Books of Moses and throughout the entire Bible. But we read these passages and say: The sacrifices all pointed to Jesus, who would come in the distant future, and the Jews were to look toward the coming Messiah in the distance through the sanctuary service. Do we read the Bible through this lens? If so, we are reading it no differently than the Israelites did back then, and we are no further along than they were. …

We read: “Let them make a sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them!” (Exodus 25:8) and say: Yes, God dwelt among them in the sanctuary as a foreshadowing of the sanctuary in heaven. And the time will come when God will dwell with His people again—on the new earth. For it is written: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men! And He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.” (Revelation 21:3) …

But where is God now? That’s what we’d like to know. What good does it do me that He dwelt in Jerusalem two to three thousand years ago? What good does it do me that He will dwell with His people again on the new earth? What good does it do me if He isn’t with me today? For if He cannot be with me today, He certainly will never be with me—neither on the new earth nor anywhere else—because He has no chance. I want to know what everyone needs to know: Is He with me today? …

True Faithfulness to Principles

We need deliverance in Jesus Christ, complete victory … so that enmity within us may be utterly destroyed through him. Then we will be free from ceremonialism. Then we will be free from traditions and human commandments and people who act as our conscience … Only trust in Jesus can save us.

Whoever truly trusts in Jesus will be saved … There is a great difference between ceremonialism and faithfulness to principles: Jesus wants to have such a comprehensive and personal relationship with us that we allow ourselves to be guided by the living, divine principles of truth that are found only in Him. His glory is to be revealed in our lives through these principles. They are to be our guiding light at every turn, so that we always know what to do next …

The difference between ceremonialism and the principle of Jesus’ living presence in the heart is this: one is mere formalism, all facade, without Christ—and the other is all in Christ, and Jesus is “all and in all” (Colossians 3:11) … I am glad that Jesus Christ has abolished formalism. He has removed, brought down, shattered, done away with, and nailed to the cross the wall that stood between people. When we are in Him and with Him, when we are nailed to the cross, then we experience that enmity has been abolished and the wall has fallen, that we are all one in Jesus Christ. Jesus is “all and in all,” and all this so that God may also be all in all.

Excerpt from: General Conference Bulletin, A. T. Jones Sermons, “The Third Angel’s Message,” No. 25, “Breaking Down the Middle Wall,” (1895).