BRIEF COMMENTS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 8, 1881

BRIEF COMMENTS.

MATT. 22:35-40. This text has often been offered in proof that the Sabbath is not binding in this dispensation. But where the proof is we cannot see. It has been called a new law, or the law of the New Testament, supposed to be distinct from the law of the Old Testament. But it is an Old Testament law. The first part is quoted from Deut. 6; the latter part from Lev. 19. Love to God and man is not at all peculiar to the New Testament.

Nor is there any intimation that this is substituted for the ten commandments; and we do not think that anybody really believes that it is, though they sometimes talk that way. To quote this Scripture as proof against the Sabbath is only proof that the opposers of the Sabbath are greatly straitened for evidence. Jesus said: "On these two commandments hang all the law." He did not say—These two commandments are all the law. What, then, is "all the law" which hangs on these? Let us examine. The first of these two is: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." And the first four commandments of the decalogue directly relate to our duty to God our Creator. 1. Have no other gods before him. 2. Worship by no false method. 3. Reverence his holy name. 4. Honor his holy day. The second is: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor." And the last six precepts of the decalogue point out our duty to our fellow-man. 5. Honor thy parents. 6. Refrain from killing. 7. From adultery. 8. From stealing. 9 From bearing false witness against thy neighbor. 10. From coveting. Here we have "all the law" hanging on the two great commandments, Love God, and, Love thy neighbor. If the Sabbath were cut down, then all the law would not hang there. Jehovah said we shall honor him by keeping the Sabbath. Isa. 58:13. If we desecrate the Sabbath we dishonor him. But if we dishonor him our love to him cannot be complete. "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." 1 John 5:3.

Rom. 14:1-6. This text has also been cited against the Sabbath, and at first view the argument seems plausible. Yet in fact it is more remote from the subject than the one just noticed, for it does not refer to the Sabbath at all. Two points are plainly seen here: 1. That it refers to matters indifferent or ceremonial. 2. That limitations are implied in the statements. Dr. Edwards, in his "Sabbath Manual," very justly comments on it as follows:—

"But what day does he speak of? The Sabbath of the fourth commandment, associated by God inseparably with the moral laws? Read the connection. What is it? Is it, one man believeth he must worship Jehovah; another, who is weak, worshipeth idols! One believeth that he must not commit murder, adultery, or theft, and another thinks he may? Were those the laws about which they were contending, and with which were connected the days that he speaks of? No; about those laws there was no dispute."

"But, 'One believeth that he may eat all things' (which are nourishing, whether allowed in the ceremonial law, which regulated such things, or not); another, who is weak, eateth herbs.' . . . It was not the moral, but the ceremonial laws; and the days spoken of were those which were connected, not with the former, but with the latter."

Prof. Moses Stuart, in his Commentary on Romans, says:—

"Clement of Alexandria and Augustine interpret the chapter before us as having reference only to scrupulousness about meat that had actually been offered to idols, and not meat in general. But verse 2 seems to be opposed to this opinion. Accordingly, Chrysostom, Origen, Theodoret, Jerome, and most modern commentators suppose that there is reference to all kinds of meat sold in the public markets. . . . Verse 5 speaks of the distinction which those same persons made between days, out of respect to the laws of Moses and the customs of the Jews; comp. Col. 2:16. The Gentile part of the church would naturally feel no scruple in respect to such matters; and it would not be unnatural for them to look, at first with wonder, and afterwards with disdain, on the scrupulousness of their Jewish brethren respecting such external ordinances."

No one will dispute that the expression, "One believeth that he may eat all things," has a limitation. For every one knows that there are some things which cannot be eaten. It refers to those things which may be eaten, and so the phrase "every day" has a limitation when it refers to things secular or indifferent. For proof of this, see Ex. 16. The Lord gave the order to the people to gather manna, "a certain rate every day." But this "every day" included only those days in which it was lawful to attend to secular matters. Some of the people misunderstood or disregarded this distinction, and went out to gather manna on the Sabbath. But they found none in the field, and were sharply reproved by the Lord for thus profaning the seventh day which God had sanctified. Gen. 2:3.