THE LAW OF GOD by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 23, 1868

THE LAW OF GOD.

By R. F. Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.

TEXT.— “The law of the Lord is perfect.” Ps. xix, 9. “All his commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, established in truth and uprightness.” Ps. cxi, 7, 8.

The law of the Most High! Inexhaustible theme! The admiration of angels! Far surpassing in excellence the conception of fallen humanity, boundless as eternity, and yet addressing itself to the capacity of a child! Divine Spirit, breathe upon us, as we contemplate this sublime and exalted theme!

Where shall we begin? How shall we speak of its “exceeding” breadth, and vindicate its immutability and perpetuity? Our first proposition shall be,

1. God has a law, a moral rule, a rule of right, by which his intelligent creatures are to govern themselves, if they will, or be governed, if they will not. He who arranged the order of the starry hosts, and fixed the bounds of the mighty oceans that the water might not pass, could not set intelligent creatures of his own formation afloat on the sea of time without chart or compass, in other words, without a moral rule by which to test the quality of thoughts, words, and actions. It is self-evident, then, that from the day that God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul, the law of God, a law for man’s moral guidance, has existed; and must still exist, as long as man, the creature of God, shall exist. Our next proposition is,

2. God has revealed this law to man. By the use of words he has made known his will. That man might not be ignorant of his law, he has given it in words which he can understand. To say that he has attempted to do so, and failed, is an impeachment of his wisdom and ability—a blasphemous assumption that he was unwilling or incapable of conveying his law to man in words which he could understand. I say this, because some impiously assume that God has a “higher law” for man, than that which he has revealed in words. Men may hold so, and still profess faith in the God of the Bible; but the position is no better than that of Spiritualism, which openly professes a guidance higher and more reliable than the Bible. It is no wonder that Spiritualistic infidelity should abound, when professed friends of the Bible can talk of a higher law than that which God has revealed in words, expressed in commandments, and embodied in a code. “The law of the Lord is perfect;” and its author is perfectly capable of expressing it to man in words. This he has done. Hence we can read and understand the law of God; and, by obedience to its precepts, can make advancement in the appreciation of its loveliness, beauty, and perfection; learning more and more that the “commandment is exceeding broad,” reaching the utmost thoughts and intentions of the heart; and that it is “pure, enlightening the eyes,” and “making wise the simple.” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do his commandments.” “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” Oh, that men would try this way and prove it! “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”

3. The ten commandments are the moral law of God. They are distinguished by God himself above all other law. There is no higher law known to man. This is evident from the following facts:

(a.) They are the only law directly given by the voice of God to a large congregation of people—to a whole nation. The history of the giving of this law, spoken by God himself with a great voice, ought to be familiar to every child of ten years of age, in every community where the Bible is known. The ten commandments are the only law thus given in person by God, and not through human agency. Its sacredness, its holiness, is attested by the fact that it was thus communicated from his own sacred lips.

(b.) The ten commandments are the only law God ever gave to man in his own handwriting. That the great Jehovah wrote this law with his own finger in tables of stone, makes its sacredness and moral character still further evident. And its perpetuity is clearly intimated by the durability of the material upon which it was written. He might have written it upon parchment, or some other material equally perishable; and this would have been most proper, had he intended that this law should wax old and vanish away. “But that his law should never be forgot, He graved it deep in stones, which cannot rot.”

(c.) By the direction of Jehovah, this law engraved in tables of stone, was placed in the ark of the testament made expressly to contain it, and placed beneath the mercy-seat in the most holy place of the sanctuary of God. And the distinction between it and the ceremonial law was manifest in the fact that the high priest himself could not approach the ten commandments, except with the blood of a sin-offering. The violation of this law made a sin-offering necessary; for sin is the transgression of the law. And the ceremonial law, by which they approached the mercy-seat, was the only means by which they were to seek pardon for its violation. The services of the sanctuary only shadowed forth the fact that a real sin-offering would be made by Jesus Christ by virtue of his own blood, in the “true tabernacle” in Heaven.

(d.) The ten commandments are the only complete code of moral precepts that God ever gave to men. Consequently, if God has revealed a moral rule by which we are to be governed and guided, it is contained in the ten commandments. It is true there are two great precepts which summarily comprehend the principle of all moral duty, which is love—love to God, and love to men, but these precepts are not given connectedly in the writings of Moses; one being found in one book and the other in another. Still, love to God was “the great commandment in the law,” and the other was like to it. Jesus did not introduce these as new principles or precepts. He did not hang the ten-commandment law on them; but said, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” The ten commandments had ever rested on these two great principles. They teach us how to carry them out, and show by deeds our love to God and men. It is the same now. “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” 1 John v, 4.

None of the catalogues of sins found in the New Testament are intended to be complete, comprising every sin. The most extensive of these are closed up with the expression, “and such like,” or “if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.” Gal. v, 19–21. 1 Tim. i, 9, 10. On the contrary, the ten commandments are given as a complete law—an entire perfected code. “For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children.” Ps. lxxviii, 5. This testimony and law are identical—two terms for the same thing; both are titles of the ten commandments. “And thou shalt put into the ark the TESTIMONY which I shall give thee.” Ex. xxv, 16. “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Ex. xxxi, 18. This shows that the testimony established in Jacob was the ten commandments. And that the law that was commanded to the fathers in Israel and which they were to make known to their children, was the same, will be clearly seen by any one who will read carefully the fifth and sixth chapters of Deuteronomy, where, after repeating in substance the ten commandments, it is said, “And thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children,” &c. See also Deut. iv, 9–13. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone and a LAW, and commandments, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.” Ex. xxiv, 12. This proves that God wrote a law; and that it was a complete, or finished, code, is proved from the following: “These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, and of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them in

two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.” Deut. v, 22. That the code was complete, is signified in the statement that he added no more. This law, then, written by the finger of God, is, I repeat it, the only complete code of moral precepts ever given by God to men.

Having learned definitely what the law of God is, we proceed.

4. God anciently declared his law perfect. “The law of the Lord is perfect,” says one text. A perfect law should never be abolished, and no alteration can improve it. To change that which is perfect cannot but make it imperfect. If, therefore, the law of God has been changed with the change of dispensations, it is now an imperfect law. But the apostle James (i, 25) speaks of an existing, perfect law. As there cannot be two perfect rules of moral action, the perfect law of the New Testament must be precisely identical with that of the Old. If this is so, the actions required by the law of God in this dispensation are precisely the same as those required of the ancients, by the same law.

Now, the ancients were required by this law to keep Saturday as the Sabbath, and this was enforced on the Jews on pain of death, while the law permitted them freely to labor on Sunday. But Sunday is now kept as the Sabbath, professedly in obedience to the same perfect law, while Saturday is the busiest day of the week. But some feel at liberty, by the same perfect law, to keep the ancient Sabbath and work on Sunday. Consequently there is confusion among professed Christians. “God is not the author of confusion,” and his perfect law obeyed cannot bring such results. It would be an insult to human legislators to say that their laws led to such contradictory results—such confusion in the set time for any duty. And the perfect law, written by the finger of God, cannot be more indefinite and loose than human legislation. Those, therefore, who keep Sunday as the Sabbath of the decalogue, must, to be consistent, hold to a change of the sabbatic law. But they have no Scripture proof of this; therefore they charge the perfect law of God with a looseness that would disgrace human legislation. To make a new Sabbath would be to abolish the old; and to say that the great God would abolish wholly, or in part, a perfect, moral law, is charging him with folly.

5. The law of God is the truth. It contains every principle of righteousness and true dealing toward God and man. “Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and THE LAW IS THE TRUTH.” Ps. cxix, 142. This law which is affirmed to be the truth is the one that God spake at Sinai and wrote in tables of stone—the ten commandments. “Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from Heaven, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, [margin, laws of truth,] good statutes and commandments.” Neh. ix, 13. Our second text says of these commandments, that they are “established in truth and righteousness.” Again it is said, “All thy commandments are truth.” Ps. cxix, 151. So that not only the law as a whole, but each particular commandment of that law, is affirmed to be the truth. To abolish this law, then, would be to abolish the truth; to change it would be to “change the truth of God into a lie.” Rom. i, 25. This law, all these commandments, remain unabolished and unchanged. “They stand fast forever and ever, and are established in truth and uprightness.” The fourth commandment is established in the truth that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh—a fixed fact that can never be changed.

6. All these commandments are righteousness. “All thy commandments are righteousness.” Ps. cxix, 172. They mark out the way of right-doing for all men in all ages. Says an apostle, “He that doeth righteousness is righteous;” “All unrighteousness is sin;” and “Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John iii, 4, 7; v, 17. Since all these commandments are righteousness, they can never be abolished. Moreover, God, long since, promised that this should not be done. “But my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.” Isa. li, 6, 7. There can be no abolition nor change of God’s law, unless righteousness and truth can be abolished, or changed. Whoever opposes this law, is laboring, though unwittingly, perhaps, to abolish righteousness, and change the truth of God into a lie.

7. The new covenant was not to abolish or supersede this law, but to write it in the hearts of all its subjects. “But this shall be the covenant that I shall make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put MY LAW into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” Here is no intimation of the abolition of the law, its change, or the institution of a new one; but simply the assurance that his law shall be “written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart;” the simple meaning of which is, that under the new covenant his people will not merely have a copy of the law written upon the cold marble, but will love it in their hearts, and consequently obey it. Those who appeal to the new covenant to abolish the law of God, show, by their opposition to the law, that it is not in their hearts; consequently they are not the subjects of that covenant.

8. Christ confirmed this written law for all time to come. Said he, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise 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.” Matt. v, 17–19.

I have emphasized the word written, because there are some who pretend that God has a law that is higher, or superior to that which he wrote with his own finger. I have said, and it cannot be refuted, that the ten commandments are the only complete code of moral precepts which God ever revealed to man. It is impious to say that God has attempted to express his law in words, and has failed to do so. But he has written his law; consequently there is no law higher or superior to the moral precepts which he has written. What our Saviour affirms in this text, he affirms of a written law; for a law which does not exist in writing has no jot nor tittle. The law, then, which he says he did not come to destroy, was a written law—the ten commandments. It is not possible that it should be any other. He accomplished just what he came to do. The ceremonial law, all admit, was abolished at his death, nailed to his cross. But the moral law he came not to destroy, he did not abolish it. Did he change it? Not one jot or tittle—not in a letter or in a point, for he affirms with emphasis, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” It is trifling with this solemn asseveration of our Saviour, to say that he fulfilled it all, and it all passed away at the cross; and that consequently he did the work which he says he did not come to do. “Till all be fulfilled” means no such thing. This is evident from the conclusion our Lord draws from the premises he had laid down, namely, 1. That he came not to destroy the law. 2. That till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall not pass from it. From these premises, he draws the following conclusion: “Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so,” &c. These before-written commandments are still to be kept. There is a reward for those who do and teach them in this dispensation, and a threatening against all who break them and teach men so. Yet men will venture to do this, and from this very text claim that they have all been abolished! But there is no possible way to escape the conclusion, that our Saviour confirmed a pre-existing, written law, and requires all persons from that time onward to the end of the world, to keep all its precepts, even those which men are pleased to esteem the least. This law can be no other than the ten commandments. But men will kick against the gods, and must suffer the consequences; for the words of Jesus will be verified.

9. Jesus added nothing to the law—no new principle of moral obligation. We have seen that he took nothing from it, not even the smallest letter. He expounded it, showing it to be spiritual, reaching the very

thoughts and desires of the heart, as well as outward actions. This had ever been the case. David could say by the Spirit, “I have seen an end of all perfection,” (i. e., human perfection,) “but thy commandment is exceeding broad.” Ps. cxix, 96. It was absolutely perfect, then, and just as broad as it is now. But did not Christ “magnify the law?” He did, in the sense of honoring, exalting, and praising it; just in the sense in which men magnify the Lord. It is written, “My soul doth magnify the Lord;” and, “They heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.” This did not make God any greater, nor make him appear greater than he really is. It was only giving him the honor and praise which were justly his due. So Jesus magnified the law by honoring it, teaching the true extent of its claims, and affirming its sacredness and perpetuity. His language when he came into the world, was, “I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, THY LAW is within my heart.” Ps. xl, 8; Heb. x, 5–7.

But did not Christ give a new commandment, that his disciples should love one another? In a certain sense it was new. It was not a new thing, however, that men were under obligation, and were commanded, to love one another; it was new only in the sense that a new motive to love one another was set before the disciples, in the love of Christ manifested to them. Said he, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” John xiii, 34. God’s people were anciently required to love their neighbor as themselves. Lev. xix, 18. Six commandments of the ten, namely, those that require us to honor our parents—requiring their love to us by ours to them—and forbidding murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and covetousness, were given on purpose to teach us how to act toward our neighbor, to show indeed that we love him as ourself; and no one can love his neighbor as himself, and willingly violate one of these precepts. The new incentive to love, furnished in the manifestation of the love of Christ for us, is “the true light” that “now shineth,” upon which is based the new commandment; or, in other words, the new motive to obedience of the “old commandment which we had from the beginning.” Says an apostle, “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. [The word or law of God.] Again, a new commandment I write unto you; because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” 1 John ii, 7, 8. “Not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk after his commandments.” 2 John 5, 6. These commandments, handed down to us from the beginning, obedience to which proves our love, are the commandments of the Father. In the preceding verse we read, “I found of thy children walking in truth, [“All thy commandments are truth,”] as we have received a commandment from the Father.” Verse 4.

How, then, do we reconcile the verbal contradiction in the expressions, “I write no new commandment,” and “A new commandment I write?” The answer is, The commandment of the Father and that of the Son are identical in the requirement that we should love one another; consequently the latter is new only in the sense that Jesus has furnished a new motive to love, in his great love manifested toward us. Says Jesus, “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” John xv, 12. Thus our proposition is verified that Christ added no new principle to the pre-existing, written law of God. I hope my hearers will study this argument well, with the scripture proofs to which I have referred, and thus be prepared to meet the sophistry of those who pretend that the law of the Father has been superseded by what they are pleased blasphemously to christen, “The Higher Law of Jesus Christ.” This is a creature of their own antinomian imagination. The Bible knows nothing of such a law. The Father and Son are one in purpose and teaching; one in holding all men amenable to the moral law, the ten commandments, in every jot and tittle.

10. This law is in the temple of God in Heaven. “The temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” Rev. xi, 19. This view of the ark of God’s testament in Heaven, pertains to the time of the sounding of the seventh trumpet, near the close of the gospel age. In the beginning of the sounding of this trumpet, the mystery of God, the work of the gospel, is to be finished, and the kingdom of God is then to be established. Rev. x, 7; xi, 15.

In the former dispensation the ten commandments, engraved in tables of stone, were placed, by the direction of Jehovah, in the ark of the testimony, made expressly to contain these tables, and deposited in the most holy place of the sanctuary of God. The distinction between this law and the ceremonial, was manifest in the fact that the high priest himself was forbidden, on pain of death, to enter the place of the ark and mercy-seat, but with incense offered with the prayers of the people, and the blood of a sin-offering. In the ark was the law which they had transgressed; while the ceremonial law, the shadow of good things to come, only pointed them to pardon through the blood of Jesus Christ.

The sanctuary, or temple, of the former dispensation, with its furniture—the candlestick, with its seven lamps, the altar of incense, the ark of the covenant, the mercy-seat, &c.—was but a pattern, or figure of the “true tabernacle,” or “temple of God in Heaven,” connected with the priesthood of Christ in the present dispensation. Heb. viii, 1, 2, 5. The “worldly sanctuary” of the “first covenant,” the “holy places made with hands,” and “all the vessels of the ministry,” were but “the patterns of the things in the Heavens,” “the figures of the true.” Heb. ix, 1, 21–24. For this reason, that is, because these things were to be true representations of the things in the Heavens, “Moses was admonished of God, when he was about to make the tabernacle,” that he should make all things according to the pattern shown to him in the mount. God gave him, upon mount Sinai, when he received the tables of the law, a miniature view of the true temple of God in Heaven, and charged him to make a true copy of it in every particular. Moses did so. He made the tabernacle, the candlestick, the table, the altar of incense, the veil to divide between the holy and the most holy places, the ark of the ten commandments, the mercy-seat which was placed upon it, with the cherubim of glory, between which, the visible glory of God dwelt; and he even hewed the tables of stone which were put into the ark, “like unto the first” tables, which “were the work of God.” Ex. xxxii, 15; xxxiv, 1. But there was one part of the work which God did not entrust to his care, namely, the writing of the testimony upon those tables. This was done by God himself. Deut. x, 4, 5. Those parts of the work intrusted to Moses were done so faithfully and exactly after the pattern as to procure the endorsement of Heaven as the true copy of the original. “Thus did Moses; according to all that the Lord had commanded him, so did he.” Ex. xl, 16. The house and its furniture were accepted, and the glory of God came in and took possession. All the things of his making were made according to the pattern of the things in the Heavens. Was the work of the great Jehovah equally exact? Did he write a true copy of his heavenly law? Then is our proposition proved, that the ten commandments are in Heaven. They are in the ark of his testament, beneath the mercy-seat, the real throne of God. As all earthly thrones are upheld by law, so the “righteousness and judgment” of his holy law are the establishment or foundation of His throne who “sitteth between the cherubim.” Ps. xcvii, 2, margin, xcix, 1. And the fact that this holy law, by which is the knowledge of sin, and the mercy-seat, which speaks of pardon, are in such close proximity to each other, is a beautiful illustration of the text, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Ps. lxxxv, 10. The truth and righteousness of God’s law condemn the sinner; while mercy and peace are freely offered the penitent believer, through our Lord Jesus Christ. “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” Rom. iii, 31. Mercy is offered alike to men of both dispensations; but pardons never did, and never can, abolish the law. Its just claims ever stand against the transgressor, and its penalty will be executed upon all those who do not turn to it by repentance, and thus embrace the pardon so freely offered in the gospel. Hence those who do accept of the plan of the gospel, keep both “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. xiv, 12.

11. Christ makes an atonement in the gospel age for the violation of the ten commandments. If it is true, as some affirm, that this law, or any part of it, was abolished with the ceremonial law, at the cross, then we have the strange incongruity and absurdity, of the Mediator of the new covenant making intercession before his Father’s throne in Heaven, for the pardon of sins against a law that was blotted out at his death, being nailed to his cross.

But was not the atonement consummated on Calvary? No. Jesus, on Calvary, was the antitype of the sin-offering, the victim slain in sacrifice in the former dispensation; but it is the work of the priest to make the atonement, by offering the blood in the sanctuary before the mercy-seat. The blood of the new covenant was shed by the hands of sinners on Calvary, but the atonement is made by Jesus, our great High Priest in the temple of God in Heaven. His priestly office is wholly fulfilled after his ascension. “For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest.” Heb. viii, 1, 2, 5.

The priests of the former dispensation typified Christ in his priesthood; their offerings were shadows of the offering which Jesus makes in Heaven. They “served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things.” Heb. viii, 5.

Those priests made atonement for the sins of the people. Christ must do the same.

Sin was the commission of “any of the things forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord.” Lev. v, 17. These commandments were in the ark of the testimony; and the blood of the sin-offering was sprinkled by the priest upon the mercy-seat, to make atonement for the sins of the people. Lev. xvi, 15–17. Christ now intercedes, by virtue of his own blood, before the ark and mercy-seat in Heaven.

But the offerings of the priests of the first covenant could not remove a single sin. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Heb. x, 4. Hence it was necessary that Christ should die “for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament;” Heb. ix, 15; and that he should offer his own blood, before the mercy-seat in Heaven, for those very sins, on account of which, a typical or shadowy atonement had been made under the first covenant. One of those sins was Sabbath-breaking; for the Sabbath commandment was one of those laws, to commit anything against which, was sin, and for which transgression, the shadowy atonement was made. Unless, then, our High Priest makes real atonement, by his own blood, for the sin of Sabbath-breaking, not one of the ancients who ever violated this law can be forgiven and saved.

How will these Bible truths, so clearly revealed, harmonize with the position that these commandments have been abolished? Did Christ with his own blood blot out that law on Calvary’s cross, and then ascend to Heaven to intercede, by virtue of that same blood, for the remission of sins against it? Remission of sins against a dead law? This is the case, if even the Sabbath law alone is abolished. I have singled out the Sabbath law, because this is the only one of the ten in dispute. Were it not that men are violating this law, and desire to make it appear that they do not sin by so doing, no sane man would dispute one of the plainly-revealed truths above stated. But for this fact, all believers in the Scriptures would accept the truth, that Christ is now making an atonement for the violation of the law written by the finger of God; and hence that that law is unchangeable and of perpetual obligation. Sin is now, ever was, and ever will be, the transgression of that divine law.

12. All men will be judged by the same moral rule, the ten commandments. God “will render to every man according to his deeds. To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, eternal life. But unto them who are contentious, and do not obey THE TRUTH, but obey UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; but glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law, . . . in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” Rom. ii, 6–12, 16. The law here spoken of as that by which Jews and Gentiles are to be judged—all that have a knowledge of it—is the ten commandments; that in which the Jews rested, verse 17, and that which forbade stealing and adultery. Verses 21, 22. Says another apostle, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” Jas. ii, 12. What is the law of liberty? The ten commandments; for the preceding verse says, “For he that said, 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.” Following the same mode of reasoning, we may add, He that said, Do not kill, said also, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Now, if thou commit no murder, yet if thou violate the sacredness of the Sabbath, thou art become a transgressor of the law—a sinner in the sight of God; for “sin is the transgression of the law.”

Now the judgment, in respect to the righteous, is the decision that their sins shall be blotted out; not merely pardoned on condition of future faithfulness, but utterly blotted out, to be remembered against them no more forever. See Heb. x, 3. This takes place at the times of refreshing, just before the second advent of Jesus. Acts iii, 19–21. The blotting out of sins is the work of our High Priest in the heavenly temple, at the close of his intercessions before the throne of mercy. Hence the righteous will be judged, i. e., acquitted, before Jesus leaves the temple in Heaven—before his second advent. He that is all defiled with sin when his work of intercession closes there, will remain filthy still; and then he will come quickly to give rewards. He now freely intercedes for all that come to God, i. e., to obedience to his law, by him. Heb. vii, 25. Confess, then, and forsake your sins, and he will plead your cause, and blot them out.

“Now in Heaven he’s interceding, For dying men, Soon he’ll finish all his pleading, And come again.”

It is no wonder that as Jesus is about to decide the destiny of the living generation—for life, or for death, for salvation or destruction—by blotting out the sins of the last generation of his people, and thus closing forever his work of intercession and remission, that the law of God should be vindicated among men by a special message from Heaven, Rev. xiv, 9–12, in order to prepare a people for translation without death at the second advent. This people must know the claims of the law of God, so long trodden under foot by men, have their sins against it all blotted out, and be found at the advent, “without fault before the throne of God.” Rev. xiv, 5. Of the law that said, Thou shalt not covet, i. e., the ten commandments, Paul says, “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Rom. vii, 7, 12. It is impossible that God should abolish such a law, but it must be the rule by which men are to be judged according to their deeds. And the main thing in the conversion of men to God is the bringing of their hearts to a conformity and love of its righteous principles and requirements. The person that is truly converted can say with David, “How love I thy law,” or with Paul, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”

My dear friends, Do you love this law? Do you love all its principles and requirements? Is the Sabbath to you “a delight, the holy of the Lord and honorable?” If you can say from your inmost heart, The law in every part is my delight, you may hope that you are truly converted, and that you will be acquitted in the Judgment, through the efficacy of that blood that was shed for you, and which “sprinkles now the throne of grace.” This holy law must be written in the hearts of all the saved; and when they enter their inheritance, the earth made new, they will unitedly observe the Sabbath, devoting it to the worship of God. Isa. lxvi, 22, 23. None will claim that it has been abolished or changed; no doubt will exist in regard to the definite day, and there will be no difficulty in keeping it on all sides of a revolving earth, and from pole to pole. No one will “compass land and sea,” by sailing round the earth on the vast expanse of waters, or on paper, to find an argument against the observance of this holy day. Its law will be written in every heart, and it will be their delight to devote that day to God on which he rested from his wonderful and benevolent work of creating a universe that was very good.

May you and I, dear friends, have our sins against the holy law blotted out, our robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb; have that law written in our hearts, and may we live to see the time when “all flesh” will delight in it and unite in the weekly celebration of the Creator’s rest-day, when the Sabbath controversy will have come to an end. Amen.