Refutation of Forty-Four So-Called Objections Against the Ancient Sabbath
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED
Texts: “And they send unto Him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words.” Mark 12:13. RFOS 5.1
“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” James 4:17. RFOS 5.2
Objections are either real, or pretended and imaginary. No real objections can be produced against the Bible, yet pretended objections are often raised against the Bible and Bible doctrines. These so-called objections, when answered, only serve to brighten up and increase the evidences in favor of the Bible and those Bible doctrines which are attacked. Such, we believe, is the case with those objections which are usually urged against the law and Sabbath, and which we purpose to answer briefly in the following pages. RFOS 5.3
Objection 1: Those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath rely mainly on the Old Testament to prove their doctrine. RFOS 5.4
Answer: We go to both the Old and the New Testament; for they support each other, and the New Testament would have but little force without the Old. 1. The New-Testament Scriptures are largely made up of references to, and quotations from, the Old; 2. The Old-Testament Scriptures testify of Christ, and without them it would be difficult to show that Christ was the Messiah; 3. Christ commands us to search them (John 5:39), and says, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4); 4. They are all the Scriptures that the apostles and the primitive church had for years; 5. Those who searched them in apostolic times, were said to be more noble than those who did not (Acts 17:11); 6. They inculcate a devotional spirit; this is emphatically true of the Psalms; 7. They benefit us by their admonitions against sin and sinners, as well as by their praises of virtue and the virtuous; 8. They contain many prophecies which are fulfilling in the Christian age, and which shed much light on our pathway; 9. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4); 10. The Holy Scriptures (which Timothy had known from a child) “are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Timothy 3:15-17. Surely, we cannot get along without the Old Scriptures, and if we believe in the New Testament, we shall not despise the Old. RFOS 5.5
We go to the ancient Scriptures because they agree with the new in establishing the perpetuity of the Sabbath and of that perfect law of which the Sabbath is a part. For instance, how can we overlook the following forcible scriptures? “Oh that there were such a 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 forever”! Deuteronomy 5:29. God is speaking of the ten commandments. “The faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” Deuteronomy 7:9. “And showing mercy unto thousands [of generations, understood. (See French Trans.)] of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” Exodus 20:6. Allowing thirty years to a generation, only about two hundred generations have passed since creation. “All his commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.” Psalm 111:7, 8. “Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.” “All thy commandments are righteousness.” “Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them forever.” Psalm 119:142, 172, 152. This psalm is a remarkable poem on the ten commandments, nearly every verse referring to them under one of such expressions as “the law of thy mouth” (verse 72), “thy commandments,” etc. “My righteousness shall not be abolished. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.” Isaiah 51:6, 7. Of Christ, Isaiah says, “He will magnify the law, and make it honorable.” Isaiah 42:21. RFOS 6.1
But even our opponents go to the Old Testament to raise objections against the Sabbath, as we shall see. RFOS 7.1
Objection 2: The Sabbath was a Jewish institution. RFOS 7.2
Answer: The Bible nowhere calls it thus. How could the Sabbath be Jewish when it was made at creation, more than 2,000 years before the Jews existed? When God had made the world in six days, he rested from his work on the seventh day, and thus the seventh day became his rest-day, or Sabbath day. He then “blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11. Thus the seventh day became God’s blessed and sanctified rest-day, or Sabbath day, and a memorial of his rest from his works. It will not do to call the Sabbath Jewish, and give it to the Jews, simply because the Jews kept it. The Jews had the same God that we have, and looked forward to the same Messiah that we believe in. Christ and the apostles were Jews. Our Bible comes from the Jews. The new covenant was made with the Jews. Jeremiah 31:31, etc.; Romans 9:4, 5. The advantage of the Jews was “much every way; chiefly because that to them were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:1, 2), i. e., what God spoke or delivered orally, the ten commandments. (See Webster’s definitions of oracle and oral.) Acts 7:38; Deuteronomy 4:8-13. In short, the Saviour says, “Salvation is of the Jews.” John 4:22. Shall we reject these blessings simply because the Jews enjoyed them? RFOS 7.3
Objection 3: The Bible gives no account of the Sabbath’s being kept before the Jews came out of Egypt. RFOS 8.1
Answer: The obligation to keep the Sabbath day existed in the early ages of the world. It originated in God’s sanctifying the day of his rest in Eden. By blessing that day because that in it he had rested, he extolled it, pronouncing it for all time to come, a great day, and a blessing to man. By sanctifying the day for the same reason, he set apart the seventh day in the future to a holy use (Webster); for the first seventh day was passed when God sanctified the rest-day, and past time cannot be recalled to be consecrated to the Lord. This act of sanctifying the seventh day could not be done without telling our first parents that they should not do their own work on that day, but should use it religiously, in memory of God’s resting upon it. Moses sanctified Mount Sinai for Jehovah to proclaim his law upon, by telling the people not to use it as they would common ground. Exodus 19:12, 23. So God sanctified the seventh day by commanding our first parents to keep it holy. Now, as this original obligation never was abrogated, if our opponents could even prove that the Sabbath was not kept from creation until the Jews came out of Egypt (which cannot be done), they have simply shown that all those living during that period were Sabbath-breakers. But this is not the case. 1. Noah was a righteous man and a preacher of righteousness (Genesis 6:9; 7:1; 2 Peter 2:5), which would not be true had he been a violator of the Sabbath. The same is true of Lot. 2 Peter 2:7, 8. 2. The patriarchs reckoned time by weeks and sevens of days. Genesis 29:27, 28; 8:10-12. This is good evidence that the example of God in the model, or creation, week was not entirely forgotten in the earth. 3. Abraham kept God’s commandments, his statutes, and his laws. Genesis 26:5. RFOS 8.2
Therefore the fact that the Bible gives no definite account of Sabbatic observance in the patriarchal age, does not prove that the Sabbath was not observed in that age. This fact is no more remarkable than a great many others. For instance: The Sabbath is not mentioned in the Bible from Moses to David, a period of 500 years, during which time it was enforced by the penalty of death. Again, the Bible does not contain a single instance of the observance of the jubilee, or of the day of atonement, the most solemn and important day in the typical system, and which the Jews observe to this day. RFOS 9.1
The manner in which the Lord and the children of Israel treated the Sabbath in the Wilderness of Sin, about one month before the promulgation of the law (compare Exodus 16:1 and 19:1, 2), shows that the Sabbath was then an ancient institution. 1. The Lord said to Moses respecting the keeping of the Sabbath, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.” Exodus 16:4. God then had a law on the Sabbath. 2. The Israelites, of their own accord, and without any new commandment from the Lord or from Moses, prepared to keep the Sabbath by gathering a double portion of manna on the sixth day, seemingly against the order of the Lord to gather “a certain rate every day.” Verse 4. For though the narrative states that God told Moses that the people should gather twice as much on the sixth day as they did on other days (verses 4, 5), yet we have no account that Moses at first gave instructions to the people relative to their duty on the sixth day. Hence, when the people gathered a double portion of manna on that day, “all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.” Verse 22. Thus the Lord proved the people; and without his saying a word to them about the Sabbath, they showed a disposition to keep it. 3. And when some of the Israelites had violated the Sabbath, the Lord reproved them, saying, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” Verse 28. RFOS 10.1
Finally, the idea of a previously existing institution is seen, not only in the first words of the fourth commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” but also in the closing words of that precept: “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it” (at creation). Exodus 20:8-11. The very day enjoined by the fourth commandment was sanctified, or set apart to a holy use, in Eden. Therefore, the commandment to keep the Sabbath day is but the repetition of a previously existing law. RFOS 11.1
Objection 4: In the Wilderness of Sin, Moses said to the Jews, “The Lord hath given you [or ordered you, French Trans.] the Sabbath” (Exodus 16:29), and afterward Nehemiah said, “Thou madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath.” Nehemiah 9:13, 14. RFOS 11.2
Answer: 1. The Lord gave the Jews the Sabbath in placing them where they could keep it. They must have been measurably deprived of the Sabbath and Sabbath blessings in their servitude. 2. The Lord made known the Sabbath as indicated in Nehemiah 9:13, 14, in proclaiming it in grandeur with the rest of his law on Sinai. The entire passage reads thus: “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments; and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath.” The French version reads: “Taughtest them thy holy Sabbath.” We have shown that they had a knowledge of it one month before this, at least. God says he made himself known to the house of Jacob, “in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.” Ezekiel 20:5, 9. Who will claim that the children of Israel had no knowledge of God before this? RFOS 11.3
Objection 5: The Lord brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and therefore commanded them to keep the Sabbath day. Deuteronomy 5:15. Hence the Sabbath was a memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. RFOS 12.1
Answer: 1. Deuteronomy 5:15 forms no part of the original fourth commandment, but the connection thus cites back to that commandment as authority: “Keep the Sabbath day, to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.” Verse 12. This the Lord had done about forty years before. 2. This entire passage says nothing about the origin of the Sabbath. The facts on this point are found in the grand reason of the fourth commandment: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:11. God did not make the world when Israel came out of Egypt, neither did he then rest on the seventh day, nor bless and sanctify that day. Here are the facts that brought the Sabbath into existence, and here is the event that the Sabbath commemorates. 3. In this passage, special stress is laid on the Israelites’ giving their servants an opportunity to keep the Sabbath, as well as keeping it themselves; and as an incentive to obedience, the Israelites are reminded of the fact that they were once servants in Egypt, and that the Lord brought them out thence. The Lord simply appeals to their gratitude, as parents do when they tell their children, We have been kind to you in doing you many favors; now obey us. The Lord uses the same motive and similar language to lead his people to be just and merciful to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow: “Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge; but thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence; therefore I command thee to do this thing.” Deuteronomy 24:17, 18. Did the principles of justice and mercy originate with the deliverance of the Israelites from their servitude, and commemorate that deliverance? The Lord uses the same motive to induce the children of Israel to be merciful to the poor and to keep all the commandments. Deuteronomy 15:1-6; 11:1-8; Leviticus 19:34-37. 4. There is nothing in the Sabbath adapted to commemorate the deliverance from Egypt, as that was a flight upon the fifteenth day of the first month, and the Sabbath is a rest upon the seventh day of each week. But God did give the Hebrews a fitting memorial of their deliverance in the passover and feast of unleavened bread. Exodus 12:13. RFOS 12.2
Objection 6: God expressly states that the Sabbath was a sign between him and the children of Israel. Exodus 31:13. RFOS 13.1
Answer: The Sabbath could not be said to be a sign between God and the children of Israel because it was to belong exclusively to the natural descendants of Israel; for the Gentiles, “or sons of the stranger,” are encouraged to observe the Sabbath as well as the Jews. Isaiah 56:1-6. Exodus 31:13 tells us why the Sabbath is a sign: “That ye may know that I am the Lord.” But verse 17 fully informs us how the Sabbath is a sign: “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” To the children of Israel, the Sabbath properly kept was a sign that He who had made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day was their Lord; while to the Lord, the Sabbath thus observed by the children of Israel was a sign that they were his true worshipers, and his loyal and grateful people. The Sabbath was a sign between Jehovah and the Israelites because they were the only people who, as a nation, worshiped their Creator. All other nations had forsaken him to worship “the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth.” Jeremiah 10:11. Had the Sabbath always been kept, men never would have forgotten their Creator, and gone into idolatry. In that case, the Sabbath would have been a sign between the Lord and the whole race. RFOS 13.2
The Sabbath was thus to be a sign between God and the children of Israel forever. Though the word forever is sometimes limited in its meaning, it must here be taken in its broadest acceptation. 1. The reason why the Sabbath is a sign is as applicable now as it ever was. The fact that God made heaven and earth is as interesting to the Gentiles as to the Jews. God is the creator of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews, and his example in resting on the seventh day is as sacred to the Gentiles as to the Jews. 2. The parties between which the Sabbath was to be a sign still exist, and so long as they continue, so long will the Sabbath be a sign between them. God still lives, and he has a true Israel in this dispensation, who have been grafted in where the Jews were broken off (Romans 11:19), who are not “Jews outwardly,” but “Jews inwardly” (Romans 2:28, 29),-“Israelites indeed, in whom there is no guile” (John 1:47), (“for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel,” Romans 9:6), “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:29. Hence it is that between the opening of the sixth and seventh seals, and following the signs of the second advent (Revelation 6:12-17; 8:1), the four winds, representing general war (Jeremiah 25:32, 33), are held till the servants of God, “the children of Israel,” are sealed in their foreheads with the seal, or sign, of the living God. Revelation 7:1-3. A seal is a sign or mark of authority, and the word here rendered “seal” is by some translated sign, and by others, mark. Finally, we find the Sabbath and God’s true worshipers in the new earth: “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon [or month, Septuagint] to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” Isaiah 66:22, 23. See also Revelation 21:9-12, etc. RFOS 14.1
Objection 7: Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, showed his intention to abolish the Sabbath by breaking it. RFOS 15.1
Answer: Christ did not break the Sabbath; but he broke the traditions of the Jews, from which he labored so faithfully to rescue the Sabbath. He kept his Father’s commandments (John 15:10), and “did no sin.” 1 Peter 2:22. He justified the merciful acts he performed on the Sabbath by appealing to the Sabbath law (Matthew 12:12); by referring to the course of the Jews toward their brute beasts, and to that of his Father, who had worked in mercifully sustaining his creatures on the Sabbath (John 5:17); and finally by falling back on the Sabbath as a merciful institution, “made for man” in the beginning. Mark 2:24-28, etc. Those who accused the Saviour of violating the Sabbath, also accused him of having a devil; and those who now charge him with having violated the Sabbath, make him a transgressor, and virtually represent that we have a sinner to trust in, whose sacrifice was insufficient, and who needed to die for his own sins. Christ’s being Lord of the Sabbath does not intimate that he was to abolish the Sabbath. Christ is also Lord of his people (John 13:14; Romans 14:8, 9), not to abolish or destroy them, but to preserve and protect them. In the same sense is he the Lord of the Sabbath. RFOS 16.1
Objection 8: The Sabbath was not a moral precept, growing out of the nature of things, but a positive institution, depending wholly on the will of the Lawgiver. Hence it could be abrogated. RFOS 16.2
Answer: Even admitting that the Sabbath depends simply on the will of the Lawgiver, it remains to be proved that that will has abolished it. But if there is one precept above another which is moral and grows out of the nature of things, it is that of the Sabbath, which is written on the very front of nature. This is the only precept of the ten which tells us how nature came into existence, and points us from nature to nature’s God. Without the facts on which it is based, we could not distinguish the God who gave the law of ten commandments from other gods, and that law would have no force. It grows out of man’s moral, mental, and physical wants. It is emphatically the precept of gratitude and love, and lies at the foundation of, and enforces, all moral law. It unfolds to our minds the grand fact that we owe our existence and all our blessings to God, who made our fellow-creatures as well as ourselves, giving them the same blessings that he vouchsafes to us; and this fact involves an obligation to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves. If we do this, we shall have no other gods before the true God, make no idols to worship, use the name of God with reverence, and keep his rest-day; we shall honor parents, and pay a strict regard to the life, chastity, property, reputation, and interests of our fellow-men; and thus we shall keep all the ten commandments. Thus the Sabbath is the link that unites man to his Creator, and man to his fellow-men, and the moral duties we owe to God to those we owe to our fellow-men. It is the key to all our moral duties. And if it is morally right to give our fellow-creatures their due, it is also morally right to give God his due, and the day that he claims as his own. RFOS 16.3
Objection 9: The Sabbath was a part of that one law which was “abolished,” “blotted out,” “taken out of the way,” and “nailed to the cross.” Ephesians 2:14-16; Colossians 2:14-17. RFOS 17.1
Answer: Ephesians 2:14-16 and Colossians 2:14-17 are important scriptures to show that the seventh-day Sabbath was not abolished, and constitute a grand rule with which to examine the Old and the New Testament to determine what was done away and what was not. This rule tells us that those commandments and ordinances that were done away were “the middle wall of partition,” were “against us” and “contrary to us,” and “a shadow of things to come.” Can this be said of the law of ten commandments? Instead of being a middle wall of partition between the Jews and the Gentiles, the Gentiles are said to have the works of this law written in their hearts (Romans 2:12-15); and if the Gentiles fulfill or obey this law, they will judge the Jews who transgress it. Verse 27. And by this law, every month is stopped, and all the world are shown to be guilty before God. Romans 3:19. This law grows out of the precepts of supreme love to God and equal love to our fellow-creatures. Can there be better precepts than these? Are these precepts shadowy? The Sabbath was made at creation, and before the fall. Was it a separating wall between the Jews and the Gentiles, a shadow, and against us? Would God punish our first parents by giving them an institution that was against them, before they did that which was against him? RFOS 18.1
But to be circumcised, to offer numberless sacrifices, to slay the willful transgressor on the spot, to be forbidden to eat with the Jews, and to be separated from them in the temple by a literal partition, to observe the new moons, to let the land rest every seventh year, to go to Jerusalem three times a year with sacrifices, to keep three yearly feasts of the Jews, and, in connection with these feasts, seven annual sabbaths (Exodus 23; Leviticus 23, etc.), falling on certain days of certain months, like Christmas, New Year’s, etc., would indeed be a wall between us, would be contrary to us, and a galling yoke that we Gentiles could not bear. This entire system grew out of sin, shadowed forth the remedy for sin, and was abolished by Christ, and nailed to the cross. But the moral law existed before man fell, and consequently before a remedy was needed; and of it Christ says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law.... Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law.” Matthew 5:17, 18. RFOS 18.2
While the annual sabbaths of the Jews and the sabbaths of the land were against us, of the seventh-day Sabbath Christ says, “The Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2:27. The annual sabbaths were designed especially for dwellers in the land of Canaan, and were not kept till the Jews reached Palestine (Exodus 12:25, etc.); but the seventh-day Sabbath was made for the race, and was kept long before the Jews saw Canaan. The annual sabbaths were shadowy and typical, pointing forward to Christ; but the seventh-day Sabbath is a memorial, pointing back to creation, was made before man needed types, and will exist in the new earth, when all types and shadows shall have vanished away. Isaiah 66:22, 23. RFOS 19.1
The one-law theory puts a host of objections against the Bible into the hands of infidels, showing that the law was abolished, and was not abolished; that it was for us, and against us; a yoke, and a law of liberty (Acts 15:10; James 2:8-12); carnal, and spiritual; etc. Romans 7:14; Hebrews 7:16. But the idea of two laws produces a harmony, and takes objections out of the hands of infidels. RFOS 19.2
The moral law either was or was not abolished. If it was, then there was a time when it was right for men to break it, and to hate God and their neighbor with perfect hatred! Horrible! RFOS 20.1
Objection 10: The Sabbath is not re-enacted or commanded over as a new law by Christ or the apostles, in the New Testament. RFOS 20.2
Answer: The object of the New Testament is not to produce a new law of ten commandments, but to define and present the true remedy for sin; and “sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. Christ “was manifested to take away our sins” (verse 5), and not to take away that law by which is the knowledge of sin. Romans 3:20. RFOS 20.3
The law of ten commandments was not repealed; hence, there was no necessity for re-enacting any part of it. Therefore, Christ and the apostles treat that law as authority. They quote from it and enforce it on the same authority that proclaimed it on Sinai. Says Christ, “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honor thy father and mother.” And James says, “He that said [that law which said, margin], Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” James 2:11, 12. RFOS 20.4
Christ and the apostles taught and enjoined the law as written in the Hebrew language, and without the alteration of one letter or tittle of a letter (Matthew 5:17, 18), as known by the Jews, and of which the Jews boasted. Said Christ to the young man who wanted to know what he should do to have eternal life, “Thou knowest the commandments.” Mark 10:19; Matthew 19:17, etc. And to the Jew, Paul says, “Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God?” Romans 2:23. RFOS 20.5
Evidence is not wanting in the New Testament to prove that we should keep the Sabbath. RFOS 21.1
1. Christ said, “The Sabbath was made for man,” i. e., for Adam and all his posterity. RFOS 21.2
2. Christ took especial pains to show what was lawful on the Sabbath, thereby acknowledging the Sabbath law. Matthew 12:12. RFOS 21.3
3. Christ, as our example, kept the Sabbath. Luke 4:16. And let none offset against this fact the idea that Christ was circumcised. Says Paul, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.” 1 Corinthians 7:19. RFOS 21.4
4. Christ commanded the disciples to pray that their flight from Judea should not be on the Sabbath day. Matthew 24:20. This flight took place a. d. 70, about forty years after the crucifixion. And Christ did not enjoin this duty upon them because the gates of Jerusalem would be shut on the Sabbath, so that they could not flee; for (1.) The command to flee is to those who would be in Judea; and (2.) Josephus (“Jewish Wars,” book 2, chap. 19) informs us that a few days before the flight, the Jews actually went out in battle against the Romans on the Sabbath. It was, therefore, because the Saviour regarded the Sabbath and wished to have Christians keep it, that he enjoined this duty on his followers; and history informs us that they did observe it. Surely, Christ has much to say about the Sabbath. Shall we hear him? RFOS 21.5
5. The followers of Christ kept the fourth commandment this side of the cross. They “rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56. And this is recorded by Luke, without comment, thirty years after the crucifixion, as though the disciples had done right. RFOS 22.1
6. The apostles held their regular religious meetings on the Sabbath. “And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made,” “and we spake unto the women which resorted thither.” Acts 16:13. “They came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews; and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.... And some of them believed, ...and of the devout Greeks, a great multitude.” Acts 17:1-4. “After these things Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth.... And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.... And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.” Acts 18:1-11. And thus a church was established in Corinth. This was not merely to accommodate the Jews. Those who say that it was, beg the very point to be proved. They should first prove that the Sabbath was abolished. With the fourth commandment in force, we claim that they preached and worshiped on the Sabbath because they delighted to keep it holy. RFOS 22.2
7. Paul preached to the Gentiles, at their request, on the Sabbath. Acts 13:42, 44: “And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.... And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” RFOS 23.1
8. We read of the Lord’s day as existing in a. d. 96. Revelation 1:10. And which day is the Lord’s day? Is it the first day? That day is never claimed by the Lord as his day. But the Bible is a sufficient rule of faith. And we read, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Exodus 20:10. God calls it his holy day. Isaiah 58:13. It is also the day of which Christ styles himself the Lord. Mark 2:28. In order to show that we believe that a day belongs to the Lord, we must cease to do our work on that day, and employ it in his service. RFOS 23.2
9. The seventh-day Sabbath is mentioned fifty-nine times in the New Testament, and is invariably spoken of as an existing institution. RFOS 23.3
10. All those scriptures in the New Testament which prove that the law of ten commandments is binding as a whole, prove the Sabbath to be in force. When Christ says he came not to destroy the law, we say he did not come to destroy the Sabbath, which is a part of that law. When he says that not one jot nor tittle of the law shall pass till heaven and earth pass, he makes the Sabbath binding, at least throughout this dispensation. When he says, unqualifiedly, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments,” he makes the keeping of the Sabbath a part of the condition of eternal life. RFOS 23.4
When Paul says, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31), we affirm that the Sabbath is not made void, but established, through faith. When Paul concludes that “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12), we conclude the same of the fourth commandment. When he says, “I delight in the law of God” (verse 22), we infer that he delighted in the Sabbath of that law. When the beloved apostle defines sin as “the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4), we scripturally and logically assert that it is sin to transgress the fourth commandment. Again: when he says, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:3), we believe that we show our love to God by keeping the Sabbath. When of the law that says, “Do not commit adultery” and “Do not kill,” James says, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty” (James 2:11, 12), we infer that we shall meet the Sabbath in the Judgment. RFOS 24.1
To say that Christ and the apostles were authors of a new moral law, would be to represent that there are at least thirteen lawgivers for this dispensation; but James says, “There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.” James 4:12. The Scriptures represent Christ as being a mediator and an advocate between God, whose law has been transgressed, and man, the transgressor of that law. 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 John 2:1. But if Christ be our law-giver, who is our advocate? The Roman Catholics will answer, The Virgin Mary, or the Pope of Rome. RFOS 24.2
If the law of ten commandments was abrogated by Christ at the cross, and if Christ, by quoting and teaching some of the commandments, made them a part of his law, then Christ abolished a part of his own law. Again: if the apostles, by the act of quoting the commandments, made them a part of a new law, as some of them were quoted years after the crucifixion, it would follow that some of the commandments were not binding for years! RFOS 25.1
In human affairs, a change of circumstances may make it necessary to abolish certain laws to enforce principles of justice. But no change of circumstances can affect the law of eternal justice. Human legislators may err for want of wisdom, and shamefully yield to the wicked desires of lawless subjects, in changing righteous laws. But the God of heaven is too wise to err, and too good to be tempted by evil. RFOS 25.2
Objection 11: The Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day to commemorate the resurrection of Christ. RFOS 25.3
Answer: If such a change has been effected by divine authority, we should expect to find it as clearly revealed in the Scriptures as the law enforcing the seventh day was. But what do we find in the Scriptures respecting such a change?-Positively nothing. As the law enjoining the observance of the seventh day is immutable, a change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day is an impossibility; for, to enjoin the first day instead of the seventh, and for an entirely different reason than that assigned for the observance of the seventh day, the fourth commandment would have to be abolished. Hence, the only way to enjoin the first day would be to enjoin it as a separate institution, and by some other authority than by the fourth commandment. In this case we should have two weekly Sabbaths, one following the other. This would be superfluous. Therefore we look in vain to the Bible for divine authority in favor of the first-day Sabbath. RFOS 25.4
It is not once stated in the entire Bible that God Christ, or the apostles ever changed the Sabbath to the first day; or that they ever blessed or sanctified that day; or that they ever commanded to observe it as a weekly Sabbath in memory of Christ’s resurrection; or that they or the apostolic church ever kept it holy or even made it a rest-day; or that they ever called it the Sabbath, Christian Sabbath, or Lord’s day; or that they ever pronounced blessings for keeping it, or threatenings for its profanation. RFOS 26.1
The first day of the week is mentioned but eight times in the New Testament: Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2. The eight texts mentioning that day simply call it “the first day of the week,” while three of them call the day before the first day “the Sabbath.” Six of these texts, recorded in the four Gospels, show that Christ rose on the first day, and that on the evening of the resurrection day, when Christ appeared to the disciples as they “sat at meat,” or were eating their supper, to convince them that he was risen, “he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.” Mark 16:9-14; John 20:19. How, then, could they have been commemorating his resurrection? It was just as necessary to have it recorded that Christ rose on the first day as it was that he was crucified the day before the Sabbath (Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:31), to prove his prediction true that he should rise the third day. Matthew 16:21; 20:19; 1 Corinthians 15:4. RFOS 26.2
The disciples had a common abode (Acts 1:13); and “after eight days” (which would bring us at least to the next Tuesday), as they were “again in the house” (French Trans.), Christ appeared to them to convince Thomas that he was alive. But he was silent at this time, as well as on the former occasion, respecting the change of the Sabbath. John 20:26. RFOS 27.1
One of the two remaining texts that speak of the first day-Acts 20:7-14-gives an account of a farewell meeting held at Troas during the night part of that day (verse 8), corresponding with our Saturday night; for, according to the Bible manner of reckoning time, the day commences with the evening (night), or at sunset. Genesis 1:5; Leviticus 23:32; 22:6, 7; Joshua 10:26, 27; Mark 1:32, 21. “The disciples came together to break bread, and Paul preached to them, ready to depart on the morrow.” By consulting Acts 23:31, 32, it will be seen that the expression “on the morrow” was used to denote the last part of the day reckoning from the night before. The meeting held all night, and Sunday morning Paul traveled on foot across a point of land from Troas to Assos, where he and his companions set sail for Jerusalem. We have seen that it was the manner of Paul to hold meetings on the Sabbath; but we are not told to keep the day on which the disciples at Troas met once to break bread, improving their last opportunity of seeing and hearing Paul. This text is not only silent on the Sabbath question; but it presents the best of evidence that the first day was not observed by the apostles. RFOS 27.2
The eighth and last text mentioning the first day-1 Corinthians 16:1-3-sets forth a system of finance for the support of the gospel (Romans 15:25-28), by which each Christian at Corinth and elsewhere was to “lay by him” (or at home, Greek, etc.), on the first day of the week, which Seventh-day Adventists are wont to do; and we have seen that the church at Corinth was raised by meeting with Paul and hearing him preach “every Sabbath.” Acts 18:4-11. RFOS 28.1
We are told that the descent of the Holy Spirit, as related in Acts 2:1, took place on the day of Pentecost, which was the first day of the week. But in Acts 2:1 it is “the day of Pentecost” that is mentioned, while the first day is passed in silence. Would God have changed the Sabbath without mentioning that day? Where is the proof that God has transformed the Pentecost, a feast that the Jews kept once a year, into a weekly Sabbath? Where is the starting-point for this new Sabbath-the “thus saith the Lord”? When and where did God make this Sabbath? Give us the place and the circumstances, the chapter and verse. The law of the ancient Sabbath is very clear. Give us a law as clear for the first day. “Where no law is, there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15); “for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Chap. 3:20. Would God punish us for not doing what he never told us to do? RFOS 28.2
We are told that God has often blessed his people on the first day. God blesses his people every day upon which they will serve and worship him. Are there, therefore, seven Sabbaths in the week? RFOS 29.1
Would God change the Sabbath, and thereby originate a new and important obligation, without saying one word about it? We commemorate the resurrection of Christ by the ordinance of baptism. Romans 6:4, 5; Colossians 2:12. RFOS 29.2
Objection 12: All the days of the week are alike. Romans 14:5. RFOS 29.3
Answer: Not only does this objection squarely contradict the one we have just noticed, but it militates against the Bible. Though the expression “every day alike,” in Romans 14:5, signifies every day that is embraced in Paul’s subject, it cannot comprise every day in the week; for, 1. John distinguishes one day from the rest in this dispensation, by calling it “the Lord’s day.” Revelation 1:10. 2. The fourth commandment, which is a part of the law that is to remain in force “till heaven and earth pass” (Matthew 5:18), makes a difference between the seventh day and the other days of the week. 3. Christ and early Christians showed by their example that the day pointed out and enforced in the fourth commandment was not like the other days. Luke 4:16; 23:56; Acts 17:2; 16:13; 18:3, 4, 11; 13:42, 44. The expression “every day” in this passage must, therefore, be limited in its meaning, as it is in “every-day clothes,” and in Exodus 16:4, where God told the Israelites to gather a certain rate of manna “every day,” while on the Sabbath there was to be none; and as the expression “all things” is in the following texts: “One believeth that he may eat all things.” Romans 14:2. “All things are lawful to me; but all things are not expedient.” 1 Corinthians 6:12. Charity “believeth all things, hopeth all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7. RFOS 29.4
Some at Rome were weak in the faith, and still observed the days of the typical system, especially the passover, on which bitter herbs were eaten (Exodus 12); while others, who were stronger, esteemed every day within the range of that system alike. To say that Paul refers to the law of ten commandments, which must stand or fall together, would be to represent him as calling those weak who keep that law, and those strong who violate it. RFOS 30.1
Objection 13: Paul feared he had bestowed labor in vain on those of the Galatians who observed days, and months, and times, and years. Galatians 4:10, 11. RFOS 30.2
Answer: It would not be fatal to the Sabbath cause even to admit that the days mentioned in this text were days which the Jews were required to keep; for we find several annual sabbaths and feast-days ordained by the typical system, “beside the Sabbaths of the Lord.” Leviticus 23:38, etc. But some claim, with a good degree of plausibility, that as the Galatians once “knew not God, but did service unto them which by nature are no gods” (verse 8), they must have been idolatrous Gentiles, and the days Paul here alludes to were days observed by the heathen, corresponding, perhaps, with what some now call lucky days. In adopting either of these interpretations, the Sabbath cause remains unshaken. RFOS 30.3
Objection 14: If the Sabbath is still in force, why was it not mentioned in the gospel commission? Matthew 28:19; or in Christ’s reply to the young man? Matthew 19:17-27; or in the decision of the council at Jerusalem? Acts 15; or on the day of Pentecost? Acts 2. RFOS 30.4
Answer: 1. In the gospel commission, not one of the ten commandments is mentioned. Shall we, therefore, break them all? This commission was to preach the gospel, which is good news of salvation from sin; and sin is the transgression of that law of which the Sabbath is a part. 2. Christ, in his reply to the young man, did not mention the first four commandments, nor the tenth commandment. Could the young man go to heaven full of idolatry, profanity, Sabbath-breaking, and covetousness? Christ told the young man unqualifiedly to “keep the commandments.” The young man claimed that he had kept them; but the test to which Christ subjected him evinced that he was not perfect, but was a covetous and idolatrous young man, and did not love God supremely, or his neighbor as himself. 3. The topic up for discussion in the council at Jerusalem was circumcision and the law of Moses. Acts 15:1-5. In the decision of that council only two of the ten commandments are alluded to. May we, then, violate the rest? 4. On the day of Pentecost, the Jews were commanded to repent of having killed Jesus. This was their great sin at that time. But all this vast multitude, assembled from sixteen different countries, and composed of Jews and proselytes from the Gentiles, kept the seventh-day Sabbath. What a mighty influence they must have exerted in favor of the Sabbath! and how providential it was that the Jews should be scattered in every nation under heaven! RFOS 31.1
It is unreasonable to select an isolated scripture that does not mention the Sabbath, and conclude that therefore the Sabbath is not binding. By this mode of reasoning, men can disprove all the doctrines of the Bible. For instance, baptism is not mentioned in the decision of the council as given in Acts 15; shall we, then, reject baptism? The book of Esther does not mention the name of God; is there, therefore, no God? The book of Genesis contains no precept to love God or our neighbor, and it does not, in its brief narrative, mention the Judgment, or the coming of Christ in flaming fire; shall we conclude that those living in the period of which it treats knew nothing of these subjects? We should take positions in harmony with the general tenor of the Scriptures. RFOS 31.2
Objection 15: The sin of Sabbath-breaking is not condemned in the New Testament. RFOS 32.1
Answer: The law of the Sabbath, which is acknowledged and enforced in the New Testament (Matthew 12:12; 5:17-19; 19:17), as strongly reproves sin as it did when Jehovah proclaimed it from Sinai. Hence, the example of the Saviour and primitive Christians in keeping the Sabbath (Luke 4:16; 23:54-56, etc.), is a standing rebuke against those who knowingly profane the Sabbath; and we should take warning from the threatenings of the Lord against Sabbath-breaking in the Old Testament, as though they were uttered against the violations of the Sabbath in our day. RFOS 32.2
The law as a rule condemning the sinner, is good “for profane” persons, even under this dispensation (1 Timothy 1:9),-for those who profane or treat with irreverence sacred things, among which is found the holy Sabbath. RFOS 32.3
The fact that no special mention is made in the New Testament of the sin of Sabbath-breaking in the times in which it was written, is good evidence that those preaching and writing in those times were not under the painful necessity of saying as much upon this subject as we are. In other words, the Sabbath was observed by the Christians of those times. The early Christians were largely made up of Jews and pious Gentiles, who already kept the Sabbath, and who were confirmed in their practice by the example of Christ and the apostles; and as they observed but one and the same day, they presented a united front to the Gentile world; and those Gentiles who received the gospel would also receive the Sabbath without contestation. Hence we see them at Antioch inviting Paul to preach to them on the next Sabbath day. Acts 13:42. This request was made on the seventh-day Sabbath, with reference to the next seventh-day Sabbath, showing that there was no first-day Sabbath between. We also see the Gentiles in the popular city of Corinth joining themselves to Paul and other Jews in the worship of God “every Sabbath.” Acts 18:4. RFOS 33.1
But it is a remarkable fact that when we come to prophecies relating to our times, we not only see the Sabbath enforced as the seal, sign, or mark of the living God, and a Sabbath reform pointed out (Revelation 7:2; Exodus 31:17; Ezekiel 20:12, 20; Isaiah 58:12, 13), but we also have a solemn warning against deliberately receiving the mark of the beast, or papacy, as opposed to the commandments of God and the true Sabbath. Revelation 14:9-12; 7:1, 2; 13:16, 17. Here again we see the sin of knowingly profaning the Sabbath reproved. RFOS 33.2
We close our answer to this objection by proposing the following question: Why is it that the Jews, who were constantly watching Christians to accuse them, never accused the apostles and early Christians in apostolic times of profaning the Sabbath by the observance of the first day? RFOS 34.1
Objection 16: Those who pretend to keep the Sabbath, should not go out of their houses, kindle fires in their dwellings, or travel more than a Sabbath day’s journey on that day. Exodus 16:20; 35:3. RFOS 34.2
Answer: Those prohibitions form no part of the fourth commandment. 1. The first relates to the Israelites’ not going out of their dwellings to gather manna on the Sabbath, as they were to do the day before the Sabbath. 2. The second was a temporary prohibition binding on the children of Israel only in the warm climate of Arabia, when “there was not one feeble person among their tribes” (Psalm 105:37), and when they had their food cooked on Friday. To kindle fires under these circumstances would have been a violation of the fourth commandment. But when the Jews reached the land of Palestine, where there sometimes falls a foot of snow, and the cold is so intense at times as to freeze man and beast (Psalm 147:16-19; Jeremiah 36:22; John 18:18; Matthew 24:20), it became an act of mercy for them to kindle fires on the Sabbath. 3. The idea of a Sabbath-day’s journey (about one mile) does not come to us as a command. It would be lawful to travel more than that distance in performing acts of mercy; while it would be sinful to travel any distance for secular purposes on that day. But how can the objector permit us to travel a Sabbath-day’s journey on the Sabbath, and yet confine us to our houses on that day? The Jews went to, and returned from, their synagogues, led their beasts to water, took the sheep out of the pit, etc., on the Sabbath day. RFOS 34.3
Objection 17: If you go by the ancient law, you should stone those who violate the Sabbath. Numbers 15:35. RFOS 35.1
Answer: The act of stoning those who profane the Sabbath is not mentioned in the fourth commandment. This duty was enforced by the typical law of the Jews. But they were also stoned to death for the presumptuous violation of the other commandments of the decalogue. See Deuteronomy 13:6-11; 17:2-5; 22:18-22; Exodus 21:12, 15; Leviticus 24:10-23; Joshua 7:10-25, etc. If nine of the precepts of the law can exist without the typical penalty, why may not the fourth, also? RFOS 35.2
Objection 18: The first covenant, or law of ten commandments, waxed old and vanished away. Deuteronomy 4:13; Hebrews 8:7. RFOS 35.3
Answer: The word “covenant,” as well as the term “law,” is variously used in the Bible (Genesis 9:9; 17:1-11; Deuteronomy 29:1, etc.); and though the ten commandments are sometimes called a covenant in the Scriptures, yet they are not the first covenant. A covenant, in the common acceptation of that term, is a contract or “agreement between two or more parties, embracing mutual conditions and mutual promises.” The first covenant was an agreement respecting the ten commandments, but was not those commandments. Its object was to produce obedience to those commandments. God’s part of this covenant was, “Obey my voice, and keep my covenant then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me.” Exodus 19:5. Read also Jeremiah 11:3, 4. On the part of the people, the agreement was, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Exodus 19:8; 24:3, 7. This covenant had a mediator, and was dedicated with blood. Verse 8; Hebrews 9:18-20. “The first covenant,” says Paul, “had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.” Hebrews 9:1. RFOS 35.4
The children of Israel broke God’s commandments, and forfeited their right to the blessings of the covenant. God found fault with them (not with the law), and in mercy made a second covenant with them, based, not on better moral principles, but on “better promises.” Hebrews 8:6. The first of these better promises is, “I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:7-12. The law in question is a law that existed in Jeremiah’s time. It cannot be the ceremonial law; for that was abolished at the cross. It can therefore be none other than the law of ten commandments. And observe that the Lord does not say he will write but nine precepts of this law in the heart, but he says, “I will write it [my law] in their hearts.” He makes no exceptions. RFOS 36.1
Christ, as mediator of the new covenant, confirmed it with many (Daniel 9:27), teaching it in all its branches. Having the law of God written in his heart (Psalm 10:8), he taught it thoroughly, pointing out the rich blessings resulting from obeying it. He also taught the real means of pardon (Matthew 20:28), and instituted the Christian ordinances to keep them in remembrance (Matthew 26:26-29; 28:19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Romans 6:3-5), and finally sealed the covenant with his own blood. RFOS 36.2
Under the new covenant, instead of having sacrifices that cannot take away sin, and in which “there is a remembrance again made of sins every year” (Hebrews 10:3), we have a perfect sacrifice, that brings pardon in the fullest sense, so that our sins will be remembered no more. Instead of the law’s being written on tables of stone, we have it written by the Spirit of God in the fleshly tables of the heart. 2 Corinthians 3:3. The law of God existed before the first covenant was made; the object of both covenants was to secure obedience to it; and it is “the covenant commanded to a thousand generations.” Deuteronomy 4:13; 1 Chronicles 16:15. RFOS 37.1
Objection 19: We are not under the law, but under grace. Romans 6:14. RFOS 37.2
Answer: To be under the law is to be in a state of condemnation for having transgressed the law (Romans 3:19), or under the curse or penalty of the law, or under the law as a condemning rule. To be under grace is to be under the favor of Christ, who died to redeem us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us. Galatians 3:13. But does being under grace release us from keeping the law, and therefore give us license to sin? Let the next verse answer: “What then? shall we sin [transgress the law, 1 John 3:4], because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” Romans 6:15. To thus take the liberty of sinning would evince the basest ingratitude, and bring us under the law again. RFOS 37.3
Objection 20: The law and the prophets were until John. Luke 16:16. RFOS 37.4
Answer: If this language proves that the law ceased when John appeared, then it was not abolished at the cross. Which position will the objector take? Again, if this text shows that the law ceased at the advent of John, it proves the same in regard to the prophets. Then we have no prophecies that relate to Christ; and who can tell that he was the Messiah? More than this: we have no prophecies of the Old Testament that reach into this dispensation. Matthew 11:13 reads, “The prophets and the law prophesied until John.” Then, law and the prophets prophesied, or were preached, until John. “Since that time the kingdom of God is preached;” i. e., in addition to the law and the prophets. If Christ, in this passage, designed to teach that the law had passed away, we should expect him thence-forward to speak of it disparagingly, if he mentioned it at all. But in the very next verse and onward he says, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery.” RFOS 37.5
Objection 21: We cannot be justified by the works of the law. Romans 3:20. RFOS 38.1
Answer: Paul tells us in Romans 3:20 why we cannot be justified by the deeds of the law: “Therefore,” he says, “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” It is because the law condemns us as sinners that it cannot justify us. If it condemned and justified us at the same time, it would contradict itself and be unjust. This would be true of the law of our own land. The law cannot justify us, because none of our good works can be better than what the law requires; so that our present and future obedience cannot meet the demands of the law for the past, and cancel our past sins. Hence, the importance of believing on Christ, who died for our sins, for justification. But in order to be thus justified, we must repent of our transgressions; and then we remain, by faith, in a state of justification only just so long as we endeavor to render obedience to God’s holy law. Christians are created unto good works (Ephesians 2:10), and all are to be judged and rewarded according to their works. Revelation 20:12; 22:12. RFOS 38.2
Objection 22: In Romans 7:1-7 Paul, by the figure of marriage, teaches that we are “dead to the law,” “delivered from the law,” that the law is dead. RFOS 39.1
Answer: The proper way to seize the true bearing which Paul’s figure has on the law, is to look at the conclusion that he has drawn therefrom relative to the law. This we find in verses 7-12: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known last, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” How different is Paul’s conclusion from that of the objector! Instead of conveying the idea that the law is dead, it teaches that the law showed Paul that he was a sinner, and slew him, and that for this reason he speaks of it in the highest terms. RFOS 39.2
Paul, by the figure of marriage, illustrates the subject of conversion. In this figure are four objects: a woman, her first husband, her second husband, and the law of marriage. The first husband dies, and the woman is at liberty to be married to the second husband. The law that bound her to her first husband, binds her to her second husband. In the application, there are also four objects: the sinner; the “old man,” “body of sin,” or “the carnal mind” (Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9); “the new man,” “Lord Jesus Christ,” or “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27); and the law of God. The old man is “crucified,” or “put off;” then the individual can be married to Christ, or the new man can be “put on.” And the law of God, which showed the sinner his relations to the old man, binding him to sin and death, now approves the convert as a righteous man, and thus unites him to Christ, unto eternal life. RFOS 40.1
Says Paul, “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another,” etc. Romans 7:4. We are dead, not the law. This death takes place in repentance, in which the old man dies. But what kills us in repentance? It was the law that slew Paul (verses 10, 11), who also was crucified with Christ. Galatians 2:19, 20. The same law that condemned Paul as a sinner, slew Christ in Paul’s stead. Therefore Christ, by his sacrifice for sin, in the strongest conceivable manner “condemned sin in the flesh.” Romans 8:3. RFOS 40.2
We are dead to the law by the body of Christ. The penalty that we deserved for our transgressions of God’s law is met in the body of Christ, that was offered for us; and the law is satisfied. We are thus delivered from it as a condemning rule. “That being dead wherein we were held,” is not the law, but sin and condemnation. It was because the law of God could not be revoked, that Christ met its penalty for us by his death. And shall we not avoid those transgressions of God’s law which made it necessary for Christ to pay so dear a ransom for us? And can we show that we are converted or changed except by a life of conformity to the law of God? RFOS 41.1
From the fact that in conversion, Paul, by “the law of the Spirit of life,” was made “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2), it is claimed by some that under the gospel a new law takes the place of the law of God. But the law of sin and death is not the law of ten commandments, but is squarely opposed to it, and leads to its transgression; for “sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. To obey the law of sin, is to transgress God’s law, and brings condemnation and death. To be made free from the law of sin, is to be brought into obedience to the law of God. In Romans 7:22, 23, Paul makes a clear distinction between the law of sin and the law of God: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” This was Paul’s experience while struggling to break away from sin in conversion. See verses 24, 25. By the law of the Spirit of life, which is but another form of expression to denote the gospel, Paul obtained freedom from sin and condemnation, and not license to transgress God’s law. RFOS 41.2
Objection 23: “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Romans 10:4. RFOS 42.1
Answer: If Christ’s being the end of the law means that the law is done away, then the law is abolished to the believer only, while it is still binding on the unbeliever; for Christ is the end of the law “for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Here end signifies object or design, as in the following scriptures: “Ye have seen the end of the Lord.” James 5:11. “The end of the commandment is charity.” 1 Timothy 1:5. The object of the law was to make us righteous and give us life; but man transgressed the law, and it could not accomplish this object for us. Christ fulfills this object for the repentant believer, who by faith in him puts on his imputed righteousness, lives a life of obedience, and secures eternal life. RFOS 42.2
The folly of rejecting the law because it does not pronounce us righteous, or justify us, is illustrated by a carpenter who would throw away his square and his line because they condemn every object to which they are applied. Let the law remain as a reprover of sin to the sinner, that he may go to Christ for salvation, and as a rule of life to the Christian; and let faith in the merits of Christ’s death, accompanied by genuine repentance, remove our sins and defects of character pointed out by the law. The ultimate object of the death of Christ was “that the righteousness [or right doing] of the law might be fulfilled in us,” and that we might overcome the carnal mind which “is not subject to the law of God.” Romans 8:4, 7, 13. RFOS 42.3
Objection 24: That which was “written and engraven in stones” was “done away” and “abolished.” 2 Corinthians 3:7, 11, 13, 14. RFOS 43.1
Answer: 1. That which was done away was “the ministration of death,” or of the law of ten commandments “written and engraven in stones. The ministration of a thing is not the thing itself. “The ministration of the Spirit,” or of “the Lord” (verses 8, 17), is not the Spirit, or the Lord; and the ministration of the ten commandments is not those commandments. RFOS 43.2
2. “Ministration” comes from a Greek word which signifies the service performed by a minister (Greenfield), or an administration. 2 Corinthians 9:12. Under the old ministration, death without mercy was administered to the willful transgressor of God’s law. This typical death penalty, forming a part of the civil code of the Jews, was done away; but the law remains the same. RFOS 43.3
3. The ministration of death, or condemnation, was glorious, because it extolled the justice of God’s law, and shadowed forth the work of Christ. The ministration of the Spirit is more glorious, because under it we behold the Lord, as it were, with open face; mercy and truth meet together, and the penalty is not immediately inflicted; for we have a better sacrifice than those that prefigured it. RFOS 43.4
4. The ten commandments are here called death according to a figure of speech by which the cause is put for the effect, as in the expressions, “There is death in the pot” (2 Kings 4:40). “The words that I speak unto you, ...they are life” (John 6:63), etc. The ten commandments were ordained to give life to the obedient, but men, by breaking them, have found them to be death. RFOS 43.5
5. Moses was the leading minister under the old ministration; hence, that which was abolished is said to be the glory of Moses’ countenance. 2 Corinthians 3:7, 13. This glory represented the glory of the typical system, and was covered by the vail when Moses came down from the mount. But the law was not covered by the vail; Moses held it in his hands. Exodus 34:29-35. RFOS 44.1
6. That which was done away did not exist when Paul wrote this passage, a. d. 60; for he says, “that which is done away,” and “that which is abolished;” and not that which was done away, and that which was abolished, but a part of which has come to life again. And who dares to say that not one of the ten commandments was then in existence? RFOS 44.2
7. Again: the words “done away” and “abolished” in these passages (2 Corinthians 3:7, 11, 13, 14) are translated from the same Greek word which is rendered “make void” in Romans 3:31: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” The ministration of death was made void by faith; but the law of God was not. RFOS 44.3
8. Finally, with the idea that Christ did no sin, but kept the commandments, and that under the ministration of the Spirit the law of God is to be written by the Spirit of the living God on the fleshly tables of the heart (Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3), how deeply interesting is the last verse of this chapter: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” RFOS 44.4
Objection 25: The Spirit was to reprove the world of sin because they believe not on Christ. John 16:9. Hence, we read of “the law of faith” and “the law of Christ;” and Christ says, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.” Romans 3:27; Galatians 6:2; John 13:34. RFOS 45.1
Answer: 1. Not to believe on Christ as the remedy and preventive of sin, would make the transgression of God’s law doubly sinful, and would indeed be a great sin. RFOS 45.2
2. The expressions “law of faith” and “law of Christ” do not refer to a new moral law, but to the gospel system, embracing the means of salvation from sin and its curse, and all the healing precepts, ordinances, and doctrines in the New Testament, such as faith, repentance, baptism, the Lord’s supper, etc. The gospel system is the law of Christ, because it relates to Christ, who is its Alpha and Omega, as Moses was the great center of the typical system. In the last message of mercy, it is denominated the faith of Jesus, and is thus distinguished from the law of God: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Revelation 14:12. Those who do this, honor both the Father and the Son. RFOS 45.3
3. The commandment to love one another was not new in the sense of not having existed before (see Leviticus 19:17, 18, etc.); but because it had been neglected and lost sight of, as the Sabbath is at the present time, and new luster was given to it by Christ’s teachings and example. RFOS 45.4
Objection 26: Whatsoever the apostles were to bind on earth was to be bound in heaven. (Matthew 16:18, Matthew 19; Matthew 18:18); and on the day of Pentecost, a law went forth from Jerusalem, according to Isaiah 2:3: “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” RFOS 46.1
Answer: 1. The fact that whatsoever the apostles were to bind on earth was to be bound in heaven, does not convey even a distant idea that the apostles were to act in the capacity of lawgivers. It simply shows that their work on earth as ministers of the gospel would be ratified in heaven. RFOS 46.2
2. Isaiah 2:3 has no allusion to the day of Pentecost, but to the state of the church “in the last days,” when the mountain of the Lord’s house, the church, shall be established in the top of the mountains (governments, Revelation 17:9, 10). When the church is in this popular attitude, “many people” “shall flow unto it,” and say, “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Here Zion and Jerusalem are put for the church. The people also say, “They [the nations] shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning books; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” But the Lord says exactly the opposite: “Prepare war,” and “beat your plowshares into swords.” Joel 3:9, 10. And because smooth things are preached when war and trouble are coming, the Lord forsakes his people. Verse 6. Query: Would the Lord forsake his people for preaching the gospel on the day of Pentecost? Read verses 7-22. RFOS 46.3
Those who urge this objection, generally contend for the first day. Now, as we meet them on their own ground, we would ask them what law went forth on the day of Pentecost respecting the first day? That day was not even mentioned on that occasion. Our opponents will reject a Sabbath which God has instituted, and which is enforced by a law that Jehovah spoke in person, and will accept a man-made Sabbath without a divine law to enjoin its observance. RFOS 46.4
Objection 27: We are required to keep the spirit of the law, and not the letter. Romans 2:29; 7:6. RFOS 47.1
Answer: If we are to understand by these texts that we are not obliged literally to do what the law requires, then may we literally kill, steal, and commit adultery? This cannot be the meaning of Paul’s frequent allusions to the letter and the spirit. The form and spirit of the law uphold each other. We cannot break the law literally without breaking it spiritually. RFOS 47.2
The religion of the Jews in the days of Christ and the apostles had become formal and selfish. They did their good works to be seen of men, and not because they loved God and their neighbor. They condemned the open violator of the law, while they did worse than he. They strictly kept up certain popular forms of seeming obedience to the law, but, through the letter and circumcision, transgressed the law. Romans 2:27. They were very strict through their traditions in making the Sabbath an animal rest; but in so doing they disregarded the Sabbath as a merciful institution, as a day to be employed in the nobler work of our Creator. They said a man should not steal, in the popular acceptation of that term; yet they stole in their sharp trades. And thus the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles. RFOS 47.3
Is not this the condition of many professors at the present time? They are very strict in keeping up certain popular forms of religion, and yet they break God’s commandments. For instance, many would not openly steal their neighbor’s property, because they would lose their reputation, and are very strict in enforcing the letter of the law on thieves; yet they will do much worse, in taking advantage of their neighbor in trade. They do not fulfill “the royal law” in harmony with the scripture, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (James 2:8-12); but in keeping certain portions of that law they are actuated by selfish motives. Now we claim that the keeping of the Sabbath is perfectly calculated to cure this selfish religion, and to help us in obeying the spirit of the law; for men will not be very likely to embrace the Sabbath because it is popular, and for outward show and temporal advantage, but because of unselfish love for God and his cause. How unjust, then, to charge upon those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath the sin of neglecting the spirit of the law! RFOS 48.1
Objection 28: To love God with all the heart and our neighbor as ourselves is the sum of all our moral duties, and is all that we are required to do. RFOS 48.2
Answer: True; but how do we evince our love to God and to our neighbor? Says John, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.” 1 John 5:3, 2. If we profess love for God, while we refuse to obey him, we say not the truth. To illustrate: A just parent has two sons, from whom he requires obedience. One of these sons comes to his parent and says, Father, I love you, but cannot obey you. The other one says, Father, I love you, and will try to obey you. Which of these children do you think really loves his father? All reasonable persons will answer, The one who said he loved his parent, and would try to obey him. In like manner do we show our love to God. The first four commandments forbid the separation of our supreme affections from our Creator; and by keeping the last six commandments we show that we love our neighbor as ourselves. RFOS 48.3
Objection 29: Christ, in fulfilling the moral law, abolished it. Matthew 5:17-19. RFOS 49.1
Answer: This objection is a mere assertion; and it is five times squarely contradicted by the Saviour, in Matthew 5:17-19. 1. He says: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets.” And certainly he did not do the very thing that he came not to do. 2. “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” According to Webster, fulfill, when applied to a law, means “to answer its demands by obedience.” It here means exactly the opposite of to destroy, as in the following scriptures: “And shall not uncircumcision, which is by nature, if it fulfill the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law?” “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” “If ye fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well.” Romans 2: 27; Galatians 6:2; James 2:8. But the objector would make Christ teach that he came, not to destroy the law, but to destroy the law. 3. “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law.” Heaven and earth still remain, and the law holds firm. 4. “Till all be fulfilled.” The word “all” in the original is in the neuter plural, and cannot refer to the law, which is in the masculine singular. It can refer only to all things respecting heaven and earth that are spoken of in the prophets. The term fulfilled, in the original, is not the same that is rendered fulfill in the expression, “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Its first definition, as given by Greenfield in his Greek Lexicon to the New Testament, is “To come into existence, be created, exist by creation.” It is rendered made in John 1:3: “All things were made by him.” This brings us to the restitution of heaven and earth, etc., beyond the final conflagration. 5. Now comes Christ’s own conclusion, which is a reproof to those who teach that he abolished the law: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least [or, as Geo. Campbell renders it, shall be of no esteem] in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Christ proceeds to explain certain precepts of the law in question in their strictest, most spiritual and comprehensive sense. RFOS 49.2
This law could not cease when Christ came. Three interesting “tills” or “untils” in the New Testament prove this: 1. “The law and the prophets were until John” (Luke 16:16), when a change took place, not in the abolition of the law, but in adding to the law and the prophets the preaching of the kingdom of God. For Christ, in the next sentence, makes the law firmer than the pillars of heaven and earth: “And it is easier,” he says, “for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.” 2. “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law. 3. “Till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18); till all those things to be restored are brought into existence by a new creation. This brings us to the new-earth state, in which righteousness shall dwell (2 Peter 3:13; Psalm 119:172; Isaiah 51:6, 7), and the Sabbath shall continue while eternal ages roll. Isaiah 66:22, 23. RFOS 50.1
This objection inculcates the horrible doctrine that Christ is the minister of sin. The Scriptures clearly teach that Christ came to conquer Satan and sin. But according to this objection, the great object of God in sending his Son is frustrated, and Satan and sin triumph at last; for Christ grants men full liberty to transgress all the commandments of God! RFOS 51.1
Objection 30: Paul asserts “that the law is not made for a righteous man.” 1 Timothy 1:9. RFOS 51.2
Answer: Paul immediately adds, “But for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners,” and, after specifying various lawless characters, he embraces every other evil work which the law condemns, in the expression, “And if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.” Therefore the law is still binding on sinners, and is in harmony with “sound doctrine.” But does Paul mean that the righteous are released from keeping the law, while the law retains its binding force on sinners? It would be the height of folly and inconsistency thus to claim. The righteous delight in the law of God as a rule of life (Romans 7:22; Psalm 1:2); and it is because they are its strict observers that they are righteous. Deuteronomy 6:25; Psalm 119:172. The simple import of Paul’s words is that the moral law, as a condemning rule, is not made for the righteous, but for the lawless and disobedient. Had the moral law always been kept, there would have been no necessity of God’s proclaiming it as he did on Mount Sinai, or writing it on tables of stone, or connecting with it, as a means of correction and reform in the past dispensation, the burdensome ordinances and strong penalties of the typical system. RFOS 51.3
Objection 31: We are simply required to keep one-seventh part of time, or any one day after six days of labor. This will meet our physical wants. RFOS 52.1
Answer: The fourth commandment (Exodus 20:8-11) requires us to keep “the Sabbath of the Lord,” the day on which God rested, the day that God blessed and sanctified because that in it he had rested. “Sabbath” signifies rest; and God never rested on more than one day; he never blessed more than one day; and he never commanded the observance of any other day of the week than that on which he rested, and which he set apart to a holy use in the beginning. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” RFOS 52.2
The Sabbath was not made simply to grant us physical rest. Its grand design as a memorial was to have our spiritual and moral wants met by commemorating God’s rest from his works; and reason as well as Scripture demands that there be a fitness between a memorial and the event it commemorates. Thus the Israelites ate the passover in haste, with unleavened bread, to represent the manner in which they left Egypt. And we Christians, in partaking of the Lord’s supper with the juice of the grape, properly bring to mind the broken body and spilt blood of our Saviour; and in being “buried with him by baptism,” we show forth his burial and resurrection. So, in resting from our works on the seventh day, we memorialize God’s rest from his works on that day. We celebrate our birth on the day on which we were born; and the seventh day is the birth-day of our world-the day that saw the works of God complete. RFOS 52.3
The doctrine of keeping any day in seven would give us as many Sabbaths as there are days in the week, would justify ancient Sabbath-breakers in their rebellion against God, provided they made choice of any seventh day they chose, would justify farmers in selecting rainy days for their Sabbaths, and would not only bring confusion in the practices of men, but also in sacred history and in prophecy; for if an indefinite seventh day is meant, how can we tell when those events transpired that are said to have happened on the Sabbath? To illustrate: The idea that the disciples “rested the Sabbath day” would mean that they rested any day in seven; and when we read that Christ rose the day after the Sabbath, it is as if we should read that he rose on any day in seven, and perhaps, as the infidel claims, did not rise at all! Also, when Christ told his disciples to pray that they should not flee from Judea on the Sabbath, he wanted them to pray that they should not flee at all! This indefinite seventh-part-of-time theory leads to infidelity. RFOS 53.1
It is a principle in God’s word, that those who put no difference between what God has sanctified and what he has not, will make it a light thing to disobey God, and will hide their eyes from his Sabbaths; while those who do make a difference between the holy and profane, will obey God, and hallow his Sabbaths. Ezekiel 22:26; 44:23, 24. God punished Nadab and Abihu with death for this very sin. Leviticus 10. They thought that God would accept from their censers incense kindled with common fire, while he had commanded them to kindle it with sacred fire. And God is as jealous of his word as he ever was. Acts 5:1-11. Can you say it makes no difference what day you offer to the Lord when God has, for a wise reason, sanctified and claimed the seventh day? RFOS 54.1
Objection 32: The seventh day may have been lost in the change from Old to New Style, or before that change was made. RFOS 54.2
Answer: After Christ’s burial, his followers “rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment,” which enjoins the observance of the very day on which God rested at creation, and which he then blessed and sanctified. RFOS 54.3
The Israelites had not lost the seventh day when they came out of Egypt; for they went to keeping it of their own accord. And even if they had lost it, God pointed it out each week during forty years by a threefold miracle: First, he gave a double portion of manna on the sixth day; secondly, there was none on the seventh day; and thirdly, what had been kept over from the sixth day’s supply did not corrupt on the seventh day, whereas, manna that was kept over for any other day did corrupt and breed worms. None will claim that the day was lost under the old dispensation, when the willful violator of the Sabbath was stoned. And Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, knew when the seventh day came. RFOS 54.4
Since the time of Christ, the Jews and a goodly number of Christians have kept the seventh-day Sabbath; heathens, and after them, Roman Catholics, and since the Reformation the majority of Protestants, have kept the first day; and since the seventh century the Mohammedans have kept Friday; and there is no discrepancy in the reckoning of these great denominations, embracing more than one third of the population of our globe. Now these great bodies could not have been prevailed upon to agree to change their reckoning backward or forward, when each one had so much at stake in keeping his Sabbath, without leaving the fact on record; and this fact is not to be found. The losing of the true seventh day could be accounted for only on the supposition that the millions of our race all lost or gained a day at the same time by oversleeping, or otherwise, without knowing anything about it. RFOS 55.1
The change from Old Style to New was on this wise: According to the Julian Calendar, established by Julius Cæsar, about eleven minutes too much were reckoned in the year. This, in the sixteenth century, made the equinoxes, and consequently the seasons of the year, come ten days sooner than was indicated by the day of the month. To remedy this difficulty, in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII. took ten days out of the month of October, calling the fifth day of the month the fifteenth. In 1751 the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in Great Britain by act of Parliament; and the next year, eleven days were taken out of the month of September, by reckoning the third day of that month as the fourteenth. But this change did not affect the reckoning of the days of the week. Russia still reckons by the Old Style, yet her week corresponds with ours. RFOS 55.2
Most people claim to know when the first day comes, and it is very easy to step back one day and find the Sabbath. RFOS 56.1
Objection 33: The earth is round, and we cannot keep the seventh day at the same time the world over. When it is noon here it is midnight on the opposite side of the earth. RFOS 56.2
Answer: Is not the world as round on the first day as on the seventh? The fourth commandment enjoins the observance of “the seventh day,” and all the inhabitants of our round world have a seventh day to each of their weeks. We are required to keep the seventh day as it comes to us, and is marked off by God’s great time-keeper, the sun. When the sun sets on Friday night, we know that the six laboring days are past, and that the Sabbath is commencing. RFOS 56.3
Objection 34: How can the seventh day be kept near the poles, where it is day for several months and then night for the same length of time? RFOS 56.4
Answer: Just as easily as some observe Sunday in those regions. Perhaps Dr. Kane went as near the north pole as any other navigator, and in the account that he gives of his famous expeditions, he mentions Saturday among other days of the week, and even gives the hour of the day. If Sabbathkeepers had been with him, they could have kept the seventh day. Those living in the polar regions can keep up the reckoning of days by the different positions of the sun, when it is above the horizon; and in the absence of the sun, by the twilight at midday, by the different positions of certain constellations with reference to the polar star, etc., as the Arab can tell when it is midnight by the turn of the Dipper. RFOS 56.5
Objection 35: We are commanded to be subject to the powers that be, and to obey magistrates. Romans 13:1; Titus 3:1. RFOS 57.1
Answer: We would reverently bow to the law of God, whether we find it in the Bible, or in the statutes of our country. But when civil rulers and the “powers that be” enforce laws that conflict with the law of God, then we would say, with apostles, prophets, and martyrs, that it is better to obey God, rather than men. RFOS 57.2
If this objection is valid, it overthrows Christianity, and proves the pagan and papal religions genuine; for Christianity has more than once been opposed by civil governments, and paganism and Romanism have often been enforced by civil enactments. According to this objection, in times of heathen and papal persecutions, Christians would have been justified in avoiding persecution and martyrdom by turning pagans or papists. RFOS 57.3
Objection 36: Why was not the Sabbath found out before? And if it is of such importance as you claim, would not more of the learned see its force? RFOS 57.4
Answer: Large bodies of Christians in Europe, Asia, and Africa have kept the Sabbath; and there are hundreds of Christian churches in Central Asia who have never come under papal influence, and who observe the Sabbath to this day. (Continental India, vol. 2, etc.) For centuries, Seventh-day Baptists have stood up nobly for this ancient institution; and for about half a century, Seventh-day Adventists have seconded their efforts in response to the last message before the coming of the Son of man, which warns against the work of papacy, and develops a people keeping all of God’s commandments. Revelation 14:9-12. RFOS 57.5
Protestants were to have the privilege of merging out of papal darkness gradually, as they could bear the light of truth; and there was to be a burden of reform for every age. The light of truth was to shine more and more as the people could bear it. Proverbs 4:18. In the last days, knowledge was to increase. Daniel 12:4. The attention of the people is being called to the Sabbath, because the Sabbath reform is now due. It is pointed out in prophecy. Now is the time to “raise up the foundation of many generations,” to repair the breach that has been made in God’s law. Isaiah 58:12, 13, etc. This reform is timely. We need it to meet the strong measures of civil governments in elevating and enforcing the rival institution of Sunday, and thereby binding the consciences of many who keep the seventh day. It is time for God and his people to work, when men are making void the law of God. Psalm 119:126. The people must be instructed on this subject, that they may see where the truth lies, and have the privilege of preparing for the coming conflict. If the question, Why was it not found out before? amounts to a real objection against the Sabbath, then it was valid when raised by Roman Catholics against important truths in the time of the Reformation; and it is raised by heathen idolaters against the religion of the Bible to this day. An objection that thus stands in the way of all progress and discovery, cannot be a valid one. RFOS 58.1
Some of the learned have not embraced the Sabbath because their special attention has not been called to it, and they have not made it a subject of close and prayerful study. It is not surprising that a majority of the learned should refuse, and even oppose, the Sabbath. All the great reforms of the past have been opposed by men of talent, by worldly wisdom, and by “science falsely so-called.” Read Matthew 11:25; Luke 11:52, etc.; Isaiah 29:11, etc.; Jeremiah 25:31-36; 27; Ezekiel 13:4, 5; 34; Hosea 10:13; Matthew 7:22, etc.; 1 Timothy 6:20. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (1 Corinthians 1:26); and those who look at a truth that is despised and opposed, being influenced by the wisdom and approbation of the world, will doubtless follow the example of those who said of Christ: “Have any of the rulers believed on him?” RFOS 59.1
Men of piety and learning in the past fought valiantly in raising up important truths from the dust (Daniel 8:12), and from under the dark mantle of error and tradition. They did their part of the work of reform. God now calls upon us to follow their worthy example in battling for his down-trodden truth. RFOS 59.2
Objection 37: The days of creation were not literal days, but immense periods of time-millions of years. RFOS 59.3
Answer: If this objection is valid to-day, it has been valid since God made the Sabbath in Eden; and if it has any force against the Sabbath, our first parents, the patriarchs, and the Jews might have offered it to the Creator as a valid excuse for not keeping the Sabbath. RFOS 60.1
This objection is generally claimed to be based on geology. Genuine geology is as true as the Bible, and agrees with it; for truth cannot contradict truth. But there is much that passes for geology that is only an abuse of that science. Geology, as a science, is in its infancy, and contradictions are not wanting in the teachings of geologists. For instance: Hugh Miller, in his “Old Red Sandstone,” teaches that “the system began with an age of dwarfs, and ended with an age of giants.” But in his “Footprints,” he reverses this theory, and at the very base of the system discovers one of the most colossal of its giants, and, instead of an ascending order of progressive development, asserts a descending order of progressive degradation. Hopkins claims that the crust of the earth is eight hundred miles thick, while Lyell teaches that it is only twenty-four miles thick. Count Borch says that Mount Ætna must be at least eight thousand years old. Canon Recupero claims that it must be fourteen thousand years old, because seven strata have been found in it, each with a vegetable mold or surface of soil upon it which would require two thousand years to accumulate. But Mount Vesuvius resembles Ætna and over the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, destroyed a. d. 79, are seven strata covered with vegetable soil which has been formed in less than fourteen thousand years. See “Horne’s Introduction.” RFOS 60.2
In the light of the Holy Scriptures, the discovery of huge skeletons of man and beast in the bowels of the earth, and the fact that sea-shells and the remains of marine animals, etc., have been found on elevated plateaus on the tops of mountains, instead of teaching that there was a pre-Adamic age, consisting of immense periods of time, during which there lived mammoth beasts, and a race of human beings much larger than men now living, prove that geology and the Bible speak to us with one harmonious voice, telling us that we are sadly degenerate; that there was once a flood; that God is just, and will surely punish the violators of his law. The following reasons show that the days of creation were literal:- RFOS 61.1
1. They were composed of the evening and the morning, night and day, the same as our days. RFOS 61.2
2. They were the same as those that are ruled by the sun, moon, and stars. After the sun, moon, and stars were light-bearers, i. e., from the fourth day and onward, they served “to divide the light and darkness,” day and night. Light and darkness, day and night, existed before the fourth day, and meant the same before as after that day, if words are expressive of ideas. Read Genesis 1:5, 17, 18, etc. Therefore, if the days of creation were immense periods of time, millions of years, the earth must have revolved millions of times slower in those days than it does at the present time; and the plants, herbs, and trees, the fishes, and the birds of the air, must have had long days in those remarkable times. RFOS 61.3
3. They are spoken of in the historical part of the Bible without the use of parables or figures. One very important feature of history which is to be handed down to posterity is, it should be written in plain language, and free from expressions which would lead the reader astray; and when God causes a history to be written, he will, of course, characterize it with this essential qualification. Consequently, when Moses, actuated by the Spirit of God, calls those periods in which Jehovah wrought, days, he simply means days, and nothing else. RFOS 61.4
4. The fourth commandment calls them days. Now it is much more important that law be written in plain language than it is that history should be so written. Ambiguity in the law of God leading to its violation, would make God the author of sin, and would make him unjust when he punishes the transgressor. RFOS 62.1
5. These are nowhere in the Scriptures explained to mean anything else but days. Hence, if they were immense periods of time, the Bible is not a sufficient rule of faith. RFOS 62.2
6. Their connection with the seventh day proves them to have been literal. We are told what God did on the first six days, and then, without any break in the narration, it is said that God rested on the seventh day. To illustrate: You have seven bushels of wheat, and decide to sell six of them, but to retain the seventh; is not the seventh a bushel as well as the first six? RFOS 62.3
7. If they were not literal, neither is the seventh day literal; for the same term which is used to denote the length of the periods in which God wrought, is also used to denote the length of the period in which he rested. If, therefore, the six days of creation were immense periods of time, millions of years, as Adam was created on the sixth day he must have lived a part of an immense period of time, one whole immense period of time, the seventh day, and hundreds of years besides. How much would this make? One million of years at least. But the record says: “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.” Genesis 5:5. RFOS 62.4
There are some who pretend that Adam could not name all the beasts in the afternoon of a common day, and that the trees, plants, etc., must have taken more than an ordinary day to grow, and bear fruit. To which we reply:1. There were not as many kinds of beasts in the beginning as there are at the present time; consequently, Adam could easily give names to all the beasts in a portion of the afternoon of an ordinary day. 2. The record of creation proves that the trees, plants, etc., were created in their state of maturity. “God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind.... And the earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed.” Genesis 1:11, 12. The God who said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (verse 3), who made man of the dust of the ground, and who will raise the dead,-the Almighty,-could as easily create heaven and earth and all that in them is in six days as in six immense periods of time. The Bible doctrine of creation exalts the power and wisdom of the Creator, while the objection before us abases the Creator in the minds of the people, and leads to infidelity. RFOS 63.1
There is, therefore, a special adaptation of the ancient week to that of creation. By sanctifying the seventh day because that in it he had rested from his works, the Creator marked off time into weeks corresponding with the creation, or model week, that by laboring on the days on which he wrought, and resting on the days on which he rested, we might keep him in grateful remembrance. But in keeping the first day, men do not follow the model set before them, but rest on the day on which God commenced his work, and labor on the day on which he rested. RFOS 63.2
Objection 38: “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. RFOS 64.1
Answer: The entire verse reads: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” This text sets forth the change that takes place in one who becomes a Christian. The old things that pass away are the “old man” and his ways and practices, and not the commandments of God. All things appear to the new convert in a different light. Sin, in which he once took pleasure, now appears to him exceeding sinful, and his delight is in the law of God. RFOS 64.2
Objection 39: Paul exhorts us to walk in Christ as we have received him. Colossians 2:6. We know enough to be saved. RFOS 64.3
Answer: Those who have received Christ aright have received him with a teachable spirit, and with a thirst for a more thorough knowledge of the will of God. Paul was addressing those who had received the pure doctrines of Christianity from his lips. It was proper for such to continue in the doctrines they had embraced. But those who have not thus received the truth in its purity, should “ask for the old paths, and walk therein.” Jeremiah 6:16. RFOS 64.4
How different is the spirit of this objection from the disposition of the beloved followers of God in Bible times, who searched, wept, fasted, and prayed for knowledge, and that they might be directed to keep the law of God, and advance in holiness. Revelation 5:4; Daniel 2:17, 18; 9:3; Psalm 119:18, 20, 5; 2 Peter 1:5; 3:13. Says the Most High: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” Hosea 4:6. RFOS 65.1
Objection 40: You seek to be saved by the law. RFOS 65.2
Answer: Our opponents never accuse us more falsely than they do when they urge this objection against us. We believe with all Protestant denominations that we are saved by the grace or favor of God; but the grace of God that brings salvation teaches us in the most impressive manner that we should renounce sin and live righteously, or according to the commandments of God. Titus 2:12; Psalm 119:172, 142, 144, 72. Christ is our Saviour. He was called Jesus because he was to save his people from their sins, not in their sins. Matthew 1:21. Can we be saved while knowingly and willfully transgressing any of God’s commandments? RFOS 65.3
Objection 41: Will all those faithful Christians of the past, who have not kept the Sabbath, be lost? RFOS 65.4
Answer: “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” Acts 17:30. If God could be thus merciful unto those who had engaged in gross idolatry, will he not much more have mercy on faithful Christians who have not kept the Sabbath for want of knowledge? What God requires of us now is to be as faithful to the light that shines on our pathway as they were to the light that shone on theirs. RFOS 65.5
Objection 42: Preaching the Sabbath will cause division, and lead men into infidelity. RFOS 66.1
Answer: This objection has been urged against every true reform in the past. Even Christ, the Prince of Peace, said, “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.” Luke 12:51. Christ knew that his doctrine would not be received by all, and that division would be the result. God wants all to unite on his truth; but if some will not advance in the light, but fall back and cry Division, on whom will the blame of division rest? Says Paul, “Mark them which cause division and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned.” Romans 16:17. It yet remains to be shown that the Sabbath is contrary to that doctrine. RFOS 66.2
It is in rejecting the truth, and not in receiving it, that men are led into infidelity. Those who receive the Bible Sabbath have a growing faith in the Bible, which appears more harmonious to them than ever. RFOS 66.3
Objection 43: How could God have blessed his people as he has done in the past if they had broken one of his commandments every week? RFOS 66.4
Answer: He could not have blessed them had they knowingly and presumptuously violated the Sabbath. It was for their good intentions and for the good that they performed that God blessed them, and not because of their sins of ignorance; and now that light is shining on our pathway, we should evince our gratitude for past blessings by walking in the light. RFOS 67.1
Objection 44: It would be better to dwell wore on such essential doctrines as repentance and faith, Christ and him crucified. RFOS 67.2
Answer: To convince men of sin is the first step in preaching repentance, and sin is the transgression of the law. Again, to show men the importance of faith in Christ for salvation from sin, we must first convince them that they have sins to be saved from; and “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20. Thus, as the apostle teaches, we establish the law through faith. Romans 3:31. By faith in Christ we see that God’s law could not be changed or abrogated to save man who had broken it and thereby merited its just penalty; therefore Christ died for man, receiving the very blow that man deserved. And remember that the Sabbath was a part of that sacred instrument that slew the Son of God in our stead. RFOS 67.3
Faith and repentance are essential by virtue of their connection with the law of God. “Where no law is, there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15),-nothing to heal, and consequently no necessity for faith and repentance. If we taught that the law was abolished, then there would be propriety in charging us with not preaching faith and repentance. The more we convince men of sin by the law, the stronger would we preach repentance, and the more earnestly would we, through faith, point to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. We preach Christ as our sinless pattern, who was crucified for our transgressions of God’s law, and to bring us back to obedience to that law. RFOS 67.4