Are the Apostles Greater than Christ?
By Alonzo O. Tait
It may seem strange to some to have us ask such a question as the above. But a statement made by a man claiming to be a minister of the gospel, led us to reflect on the above subject. He was speaking against the Sabbath of the decalogue, and finding that the Saviour said in Matt. 5:17–19 and in Luke 16:17 that the law would stand as long as heaven and earth endure, he tried to parry the force of the Saviour’s words by saying that “no matter what Moses, prophet, priest, or even Christ himself may have said or taught, it is of no force unless it is re-affirmed by the apostles.” Can blasphemy be more daringly asserted than that the great Teacher must have the apostles re-state what he has said, in order for it to be binding upon us as Christians? And yet men will go to such absurd and extreme lengths for no other reason than to get rid of observing God’s great day of rest. And if the apostles must thus confirm what Christ said while a teacher here on earth, what must they be? Are they above the Son of God in authority? And must he ask them how everything he proposes must be done? And after he speaks forth his will must he wait in trembling expectancy to see if it will be sanctioned by the apostles? How absurd! And yet many of the members of that man’s church were so anxious to have him do away with the Sabbath that they thought he was all right in making such a grossly blasphemous assertion. Men used to say, when they tried to get rid of the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, that the Old Testament was all that was abolished; but when they find that Christ taught the Sabbath in the New Testament, they are ready to throw away half of that. Now the question is, When this same class of teachers find how forcibly the commandments and the Sabbath are enforced by the apostles, will they throw away all they wrote too? If a man try to draw a line in the Bible past the last place where the law which requires the observation of the Sabbath is mentioned, and then throw away all before that, he will find himself confined to the last seven verses of the book of Revelation. And those who want to pay so dearly for getting rid of a plain requirement of God’s word will find that the first of these last seven verses tells him that he is without, among the dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, and liars. This is not very pleasant company surely. But all those who try to get rid of God’s law that forbids such things will unmistakably be found there unless they repent. We are certainly in the time of great deceptions, of which the word of God warns us. And when we find ourselves tempted to throw away the words of Christ in this wholesale manner, we need to reflect seriously whether we would not throw away the great Teacher himself if he was here and presented duty that was not agreeable to the carnal mind. A. O. TAIT.