Articles
When Addition is Subtraction
As those who rely heavily on God’s word for our direction, we sometimes forget that we don’t understand it better than He wrote it. That is, we sometimes read our understandings into the text, and then communicate our understanding of God’s word to others as if it was just as valid as the text itself. We must be very careful to make the differentiation between the words that God has supplied to us, and the words we think He should have used.
We don’t have all the information about the communication of God’s commands from Adam to Eve, but when God commanded Adam concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, His requirement was, “you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17) When that same command was being communicated to the serpent by Eve, there was a new element. “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” (Genesis 3:2-4) We do not know the origin of the second part of the command, and we cannot be sure that it came from God directly. The only record we have of God’s command says nothing about touching it. However, for all of the apparent extra care might be involved with adding “or touch it,” Eve still failed and ate the fruit.
Perhaps that is why God specifically instructed His people to not “not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it” (Deuteronomy 4:1-2; 12:32) because to do either was to fail to keep it. This goes against our instincts, because if we truly believe anything as humans, it is that more regulations prevent failure. However, God’s Law is not on that needs additional regulations to succeed. Jesus worked to restore God’s Law to its original intent by exposing the failures of additional regulations in Matthew 5:21-48. Anything that followed the repeated, “you have heard that the ancients were told” was an addition to God’s word.
Jesus was not the last messenger to deal with additional regulations, because Paul spoke to the church in Colossae about those trying to dictate Jewish traditions that were “shadow of what is to come” as well as those preaching, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (Colossians 2:16-23) A religion that was focused on “self-abasement and severe treatment of the body” appeared to be wise, but in reality was “no value against fleshly indulgence.”
When we read and communicate God’s word, we must be careful to be content with what He has commanded, not only avoiding subtraction, but addition as well.
