Untitled article by B. McCormic

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, February 4, 1868

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 8

SOPHISTRY.

By B. McCormic

“Show me one text where a Gentile is commanded to keep the Sabbath, and I will keep the next seventh day.” This language was used by J. M. Stephenson as an objection to keeping the Sabbath. This seems to some to be quite a formidable objection; but let us examine it in the light of God’s word, and see if it is really so. And I will first ask, Will any of our no-Sabbath friends show me one text where a Gentile is forbidden to have other God’s before Jehovah, or forbidden to take the name of God in vain? Why will not our friends apply their arguments to some of the other commandments besides the fourth? Still further, Is there a promise to a Gentile between the lids of the Bible? Not one. Now, let us see in what relation the Gentiles stood to God’s law and promises in the former dispensation. In order to have any right to the promises and blessings of God, they had to become adopted into the family of Israel. Then, no one will deny that they were under obligation to keep all God’s law and commandments. This, Eld. S. admitted.

At this point, a very important query arises: What has become of God’s ancient Israel? We will let the apostle Paul answer in his epistle to the Romans. He is speaking of the rejection of Christ and the gospel, by the Jews, and in the eleventh chapter, he asks the question, “Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the Scriptures saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life? But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at the present time also [as in the days of Elijah] there is a remnant according to the election of grace.”

Who are the representatives of God’s ancient Israel? The little remnant Paul speaks of here, who remain loyal and true, who accepted of Christ and the gospel? or those disobedient Jews that were broken off through unbelief? Rom. xi, 22. Suppose that here is a Baptist church of fifty members. Suppose that four-fifths of those members rebel against the doctrines and usages of that church and leave her communion, or are cut off. Who would constitute that church? the one-fifth that remained steadfast? or the four-fifths that were cut off? Any one can see, at a glance, that it would be the little remnant that remained loyal and true. Precisely so in the other case. The remnant of which Paul speaks, are true Israel, and not those rebellious Jews that were cut off through unbelief.

Now we have found that God’s ancient Israel are brought right into the gospel dispensation, and the same relation exists between God and his Israel in the present as in the former dispensation; and no one will deny that they were commanded to keep the Sabbath.

What relation does the Gentile sustain to the law and promises of God? Precisely the same in the present as in the former dispensation. In the former dispensation, they were adopted into the family of Israel through the law of circumcision, in the present, through faith in Christ. Paul in his epistle to the Galatians, showing that the law of faith has taken the place of the ceremonial law, says in chap. iii, 8, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen (Gentiles) through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” Verse 16. “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Verse 29. Now, if the Gentile, by being adopted into the family of Israel, thereby becomes the seed of Abraham, his relation is changed from that of a Gentile to an Israelite or a spiritual Jew. Now the commandment to keep the Sabbath extends to him as well as to the literal seed. This relieves us of the necessity of furnishing a Gentile commandment for keeping the Sabbath.

B. McCORMIC.

Menomonie, Wis.