Untitled article by W. C. G.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, August 27, 1867

“THE SEVENTH-DAY SABBATH—IS ITS OBSERVANCE BINDING.”

By W. C. G.

(Continued.)

We promised last week to give what we considered the true meaning of Rom. vii, 1–6, quoted by Mr. Bailey to prove the abolition of the ten commandments. For this purpose we can do no better than to quote from the review of Eld. Preble, on pp. 55–7 of Both Sides on the Sabbath Law.

“Scarcely ever do we read an exposition of this portion of scripture by an opposer of the law, without being pained at the amount of unnatural effort expended to wrest and pervert this language of the apostle. Somehow it must be made to teach, according to their programme, that the law is abolished, though the apostle designed no such thing, as a few words will suffice to show. Under the figure of marriage, Paul represents the condition of a person before and after conversion. In the illustration are four things, the woman, the law, the first husband, and the second husband, to whom she is at liberty to be married after the first husband is dead. In the case illustrated there are also four things: the sinner represented by the woman, the moral law represented by the law of marriage, something to which the sinner is bound, represented by the first husband, and Christ, represented by the second husband. In the illustration, the husband dies, and then the woman is free to marry another. In the case of the sinner, that also which is represented by the first husband dies, and that alone. Now, it will be seen, the whole question is, What constitutes the first husband? Do you say it is the law? Then you violate Paul’s illustration; for in that he makes the husband distinct from the law, and it is the husband, not the law, that dies. And again, if you say it is the law that has died, then you make the law the first husband, and represent Paul as teaching the following pitiful absurdity: The sinner is bound by the law to the law as long as the law lives; but when the law is dead, and there is nothing to show or condemn his sin, then he is ready, all reeking with moral pollution, to be received to the bosom of his Saviour!”

“Again we recur to the question on which the whole controversy of Rom. vii turns, namely, What constitutes the first husband? We have seen what unpardonable confusion it introduces into Paul’s figures to call it the law. What then shall we call it? Answer: That which dies when the sinner is converted. And what is that? It is what St. Paul so often speaks of as the ‘old man,’ the ‘body of sin,’ the ‘carnal mind.’ And this is always represented as being ‘crucified,’ ‘destroyed,’ and ‘put off,’ when the new man is put on. The sixth of Romans is introductory to the seventh. The reader is requested to examine it in this connection. Paul there gives us a discourse on conversion and baptism. He represents the sinner as slain by the law, or dead to sin, the old man crucified, and the body of sin destroyed: then he is ready to be buried with Christ by baptism, and rise to walk in newness of life. See the following scriptures, where the putting off of the old man, and the putting on of the new, or the release from the first husband and the union with the second is described. Eph. iv, 22–24; Col. iii, 9, 10; Rom. vi, 6. Then to illustrate his subject, Paul introduces the figure used in chapter vii, a woman bound by the law to her husband, and not being allowed to marry another till her first husband was dead. Now, mark the conclusion to which he comes through this illustration: Is it that the law is dead? No; but ‘wherefore, my brethren, ye, also, are become dead to the law by the body of Christ.’ Verse 4.”

“‘But,’ says the objector, ‘do we not read in verse 6, “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held?” and does not the word that, refer to the law, and show that the law is dead?’ By no means. The expression, that being dead, does not refer to the law. Turning to the Greek Testament, we find the word from which that expression comes, to be ἀποθανόντες. Did this word refer to the law, it should be in the genitive singular, the word law, just before it, being in that case and number; but it is in the nominative plural, and therefore refers to the word we: we are delivered from the law, we being dead to that, &c. The margin of our English version has the same reading, which is a literal rendering of the Greek. But even if we take it as it stands in the text, our opponents cannot make out of it what they claim; for the expression is qualified by the words, ‘wherein we were held.’ Wherein were we held while in sin? Not in the law, surely; but in a state of condemnation, or inseparably united to our old man of sin. This must die before we can be free from it. And the expressions, that being dead, or we being dead to that, are synonymous expressions; but the Greek forever settles the question that it cannot refer to the law. Therefore, look at it in whatever light we will, Rom. vii contains no intimation whatever that the law is in any degree relaxed, or we in any wise released from its claims. Rightly understood, there is a beautiful harmony in the illustration that Paul here uses, and the seventh of Romans becomes a strong citadel, not for those who would have the law abolished, but for those who ‘delight in the law of God after the inward man,’ and who esteem the ‘commandment holy, and just, and good.’”

W. C. G.

(To be continued.)