"THE SEVENTH-DAY SABBATH—IS ITS OBSERVANCE BINDING?"
By w. c. g.
In entering upon the work of reviewing this tract we had designed to notice only some of the leading arguments, such as have not been repeatedly and fully met in the Review, and in our various publications, together with some old arguments or sophistries which Mr. B. has ingeniously re-vamped for the occasion. In a recent number of the World's Crisis we notice that this tract is highly extolled, and recommended to its readers as an antidote for the Sabbath-keeping mania. Had we known how highly it was to be regarded by them it is possible we might have deemed it as of more consequence, and spent more time in going into particulars. We have endeavored, however, to do him justice in fairly presenting such of his arguments as we deemed worthy of notice. In our last article we left him endeavoring to get rid of the days and months in the new earth. On this point he makes another effort. “But we are told there are months there, hence weeks and days; for John says when speaking of the tree of life, that it ‘yielded her fruit every month,’ It says it yielded [not shall yield] her fruit every month—i. e., back in Eden. And that the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations; not ‘shall be.’ There will be none sick in the world to come; but it was intended for medicine back there. It only identifies the tree: that is all.” Mr. B. has a happy faculty of terminating his logical deductions with an emphatic “that is all,” as though the matter were settled beyond controversy. If he means “that is all” he knows about it, we can pardon him, but to assert that nothing more is taught or fairly deducible from the text is quite another matter. Because John spoke in the past tense Mr. B. reasons that what he describes must have all been in the past. This reasoning would dispense with the tree of life altogether, for he speaks of that also in the same tense: The construction of the language demands that the past tense should be used, and this is the language of prophecy all through the book of Revelation. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” &c. With equal force might the objector claim that all the events described there transpired before A. D. 96. And further, how does he know that this description only identifies the tree, when it is the first intimation we have in Scripture that these were the peculiarities of the tree of life, and how can he locate it back in Eden when the description of the tree as it stood in Eden contains no such account? “The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” A word on this point may be demanded, as the objector claims that “there will be none sick in the world to come.” On this account he claims that “it was intended for medicine back there,” i. e. in Eden. The absurdity of this position will be manifest upon a moment’s consideration. If we understand the teachings of Scripture on this point, Paradise regained will be as Paradise before the fall, and as the transgression brought sickness and death, and the loss of the tree of life at the same time, we must conclude that its leaves were never intended for man after sickness and death came upon him. Hence the term “for the healing of the nations,” must have some other significance than that of administering to bodily diseases. The Greek word θεραπεία, from which the word healing is derived, is thus defined by Liddell and Scott: “A waiting on, service, attendance; and so, the body of attendants, a king’s suite, retinue. 1. Service done. 2. A fostering, tending, nurture, care. 3. Service done to gain favor. 4. Service done to the sick, tending. Of animals, rearing, bringing up, keeping, and of plants, cultivation.” We see from these definitions that there is nothing in the use of this word which necessitates the idea of sickness or disease in the new earth. If access to the tree of life is not so desirable, as Mr. B. would have us believe, why is it so held out in the Scriptures? “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life.” “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life,” &c. Rev. ii, 7; xxii, 14. May God help us to have a love for his commandments in these last days, when a people are being developed, keeping “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” that we may share the inestimable privilege of partaking of this tree.