Let's look at the statements I made again.
Tradition that goes against the commandment of God, according to Jesus Matthew 15:3-6, makes the commandment of none effect. This was the specific point I was making.
I didn't say all tradition is bad.
Let's look at 2 Thessalonians 2:15, but include verse 14 for context.
The gospel.
2 Thessalonians 2:14-15 Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
Jesus.
Matthew 28:19-20 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
What does Paul say about the gospel in 1 Thessalonians 7:7-10?
1 Thessalonians 7:1-10 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
Paul is speaking of those who do not obey the gospel. Obedience. I was addressing tradition that specifically causes transgression of the commandments of God and makes it of none effect, as per Matthew 15:3-6. I'm calling for obedience.
Thank you for the clarification. I now understand your concern more precisely: you’re not rejecting all tradition, but specifically that which contradicts the commandments of God. That’s an important distinction.
But respectfully, here’s where I believe your argument runs into difficulty:
The Apostolic Tradition upheld by the Orthodox Church does not contradict God’s commandments—it preserves them, along with the fullness of the Gospel. As St. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, we are to “stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle.” He does not limit this to Scripture, nor does he describe “tradition” only as the written Gospel.
Later in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, he tells us to avoid those who do not walk according to the tradition they received. That warning is not addressed only to outsiders, as you suggest—it is addressed to Christians who were part of the Church. The idea that Paul’s rebuke applies only to non-believers isn’t found in the text. On the contrary, he’s warning against disorder within the Church, not simply among those who deny the Gospel outright.
This is critical: Paul sees Tradition as something living, binding, and passed down both in written and unwritten form. The Gospels themselves were written after the Church had already been proclaiming Christ for decades. The Creed, the canon of Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity—these were all received and preserved by Apostolic Tradition, not discovered by private interpretation.
As for obedience: yes, it is central to the Christian life. But the question is, obedience to what? If we reject the Tradition that gave us Scripture, how can we rightly interpret it? If every believer must determine for themselves what is and is not “the Gospel,” what prevents error, schism, or distortion?
On the Sabbath, we Orthodox honor the Sabbath. We use it as a day to commemorate Christ our God reposing in the tomb after remaking Man in His image, in preparation for the celebration of His resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Sunday.
The specific Sabbatarian objection, that the Sabbath was changed, does not apply to the Orthodox, and historically did not apply to the Roman Catholic Church, until some ill-advised Scholastic era theological statements; but if we look at the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, of the Tridentine Mass, it refers to Saturday as Sabbato, and I would note, I can’t fathom why your denomination objects to Roman Catholics so much, because the majority of worship services held on Saturday by Christians are Roman Catholic masses - which undermines the argument made by EGW about the Catholics having corrupted it at the timeline she specified in The Great Controversy.
Now, on the subject of obedience to Commandments, the Holy Spirit also has the right to issue Commandments, as much as Christ, who, as Adventists like to say, was the person of the Holy Trinity who inscribed the Decalogue with his finger (but the Decalogue he later summarized as “Love Thy neighbor as Thy self, and Love God with all Thy heart, mind and soul”, which corresponds to the two tablets; the tablets are indeed a typological prophecy of the Incarnation Christ our God, for the the word of God was carried in an ark, and likewise, the Incarnate Word of God was carried by our Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary prior to His glorious Nativity, which we celebrate on December 25th, except for the Armenians, who retain the ancient custom of celebrating this together with the Baptism of Christ on January 6th (in Jerusalem, where all EO and OO churches use the Julian Calendar, this results in them celebrating Christmas on the 19th of January; this also greatly helps reduce overcrowding at the holy sites, so I am thankful the Armenian church retained, as was its perogative, the older liturgical custom). However, the fourth century practice, adopted in response to the Arian heresy, was simply to add nine months to the date of Christ’s conception, which was already celebrated on March 25th, since, it is a tradition of the Church, and one that in no respect contradicts any commandment, that Christ was conceived on the same day that would have been the 14th of Nissan according to the Jewish calendar in use in 33 AD (which was changed after the destruction of the Temple, which is why the church discontinued Quartodecimianism at the Council of Nicaea, but I digress).
At any rate, insofar as the Holy Spirit, as God, coequal to the Son and the Father, can issue Commandments, and insofar as the Holy Spirit speaks through the inspired writings of the Holy Prophets and those Apostles, in the canonical 27 books that He guided the Church into adopting as our New Testament, the instruction by St. Paul to adhere to Holy Tradition can be regarded as a commandment in and of itself. Thus, insofar as Tradition includes worship on the First Day in celebration of the Resurrection as well as the Seventh, since Christ our True God commanded that we pray without ceasing (and we know the Apostles worshipped on the first day - since all 12 of them, and 200 other followers of Christ, were in the Upper Room of the house of St. Mark the Evangelist at the Third Hour, approximately 9 AM, on Sunday - which also corresponds to one of the three daily times of Jewish prayer, since Jews historically prayed three times a day since the time of St. Nehemiah the Prophet and St. Ezra the Priest, and this formed the basis for Christian daily prayer, specifically, Matins, Vespers and Compline - Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer), we should worship on Sunday as well as Saturday, and the Sabbath commandment is in no respect violated.
What is more, the Orthodox uphold the Sabbath commandment correctly, by on that day remembering that Christ, God Incarnate, after His passion, after remaking fallen Man in HIs image, as He made us in His Image in Genesis 1 (itself a text both literal and prophetic of His passion and resurrection) rested - this time in a tomb, and thus in our Sabbath liturgies we commemorate Christ’s repose, and additionally, all of the saints in Heaven, and also pray for the salvation of our departed loved ones, and also commemorate the blessed Virgin Mary, who points us to Christ, for there is a direct typological parallel between Christ’s repose in the Tomb, in which He who created the universe and is uncircumscribable was contained in the Holy Sepulchre, and His time in the blessed immaculate Womb of the Theotokos.
Thus, I propose if one really cares about adherence to the ten commandments, and all other commandments of God, whether delivered by HIm orally, or by tracing His finger, or through the mouths of HIs Apostles, and only following traditions that do not contradict any commandment (for example, Christ’s commandment that we partake of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and that we should be Baptized), one should associate themselves with a traditional liturgical church like the Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Churches and the other traditional liturgical churches which have a similar understanding of things, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the traditional Anglicans, and Confessional Lutherans, and the Assyrian Church of the East.
I would also encourage Sabbatarians to add worship services on Sunday to commemorate the Resurrection of Christ our God, in addition to daily prayer services on every other day of the week; which is the common practice of all churches (the highest priority days, however, if it comes down to it, are Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday; the liturgical day begins at sunset, as was the case in Judaism, so for example, Friday can be observed on Thursday evening, Saturday on Friday evening, Sunday on Saturday evening, and Wednesday on Tuesday evening - the importance of Wednesday is because it was on that day that Judas arranged to hand over our Lord, thus betraying Him. For this reason, Wednesday and Friday are the traditional days of fasting, with Saturday and Sunday the traditional feast days; indeed, John Wesley desired all Methodists to fast on Wednesday and Friday, reviving the Patristic custom that had fallen out of use in the West, with fasting limited to Fridays in Lent - and additionally Wesley, who was heavily influenced by Orthodox theology, desired that Methodist churches have prayer services that specifically included the Great Litany, a beautiful Anglican liturgy of supplicatory prayer, on those days, which would have been most appropriate.
