The Signs of the Times
January 31, 1895
Obedience to God's Word Required
(Concluded.)
There are many who claim to be sanctified. They are not slow to declare before the people that they have not committed sin for years. But this profession does not constitute proof of their statement. If they were holy, their conversation would be holy, their testimony would be in accordance with the divine will, their prayers would be modeled after the prayers of Christ. They would pray, “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” We are living in days when deception is on every hand. We are warned to “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” We are to know them by their fruits. The Lord said, “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” ST January 31, 1895, par. 1
If persons come to you claiming to be sanctified, and yet making void the law of God, and teaching others that they may transgress it with impunity, their sanctification, when weighted in the balances of the sanctuary, has no more weight with God than had the long, pretentious prayers of the Pharisees. The higher the profession, the more deceptive the pretention, the more likely the unwary are to be deceived, and the greater will be the wrath of an offended God. Those who make high claims, and who disregard the law of God, are registered in the books of heaven as rebels against the divine government. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” ST January 31, 1895, par. 2
Was this fearful denunciation pronounced against the Pharisees because they kept the law of God?—No, it was because they did not keep the law of God, and were not doers of his word. Had they kept God's law, they would have discerned that Jesus was the Son of God, and would have appreciated his mission. So it is in our day. If those who profess to believe in Christ, really did believe in him, they would do his work, they would have respect unto his commandments. ST January 31, 1895, par. 3
Jesus has made it evident that his attitude to the law was one of loyalty. He says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” There are some who tell the people to throw the Old Testament into the fire; but such statements are not in harmony with what Jesus told the people. Jesus declared that his work was not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. He came to magnify the law, to exalt its honor, to show by his suffering and death that the law is immutable, and that God cannot annul its penalty for transgression. He further declared: “Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” He showed them what it was that constituted the sin of the Pharisees, that, though they were punctilious in the observance of outward forms, they did not in heart obey the commandments of God. “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” ST January 31, 1895, par. 4
The attitude of Christ to the law is unmistakable, but how men have presumed to misstate, misapply, and pervert his words! They have drawn an altogether different lesson from that which he designed to teach, and have therefore put themselves under the condemnation that Christ pronounced upon the Pharisees: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” ST January 31, 1895, par. 5