Facts of Faith

The Sabbath Moral Or Typical?

Some claim that the Sabbath commandment does not enforce the observance of the seventh day of the week, but only the seventh part of our time, the particular day being left to our choice. But nothing could be more contradictory to the plain wording of the commandment. If God’s commands and promises are to be so construed as to mean the very opposite of what they state, then we may bid farewell to all certainty and comfort derived from the Scriptures. God commands us to keep, not a seventh, but the seventh, day, on which He rested, the day He blessed and sanctified. (Exodus 20:10, 11) The Sabbath rests on a historical event that cannot be changed to another day, any more than our birthday can be changed. FAFA 75.1

In regard to the claim that the Sabbath commandment is not moral as the other nine, but ceremonial, it needs only to be said that there is no statement to that effect in the whole Bible, and it would involve its advocates in the most serious difficulty. All through the Bible a clear distinction is maintained between the two laws, the moral and the ceremonial. God spoke the Ten Commandments to the people directly, “and He added no more” (Deuteronomy 5:22); He engraved them on two tables of stone (Exodus 32:16; Deuteronomy 9:10); and had them laid in the ark” (Deuteronomy 10:5; 1 Kings 8:9). But the ceremonial law of ordinances was spoken to the people by Moses, was written by him “in a book,” and laid beside the ark. (Exodus 21:1; 24:3, 4, 7; Deuteronomy 31:24-26. ¹¹) Now we respectfully ask: Would any one claim that God did not understand the difference between moral and ceremonial laws, and hence wrote a ceremonial command into the very bosom of His moral law, the Decalogue? Such an accusation of God would be preposterous, and yet, this is what the above claim necessarily implies! We must therefore conclude that all the Ten Commandments are moral, which practically all the leading religious denominations teach in their confessions of faith. FAFA 75.2