Discrediting the Scriptures

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 13, 1908

Discrediting the Scriptures

The influence of the conclusions of a false science upon the question of obedience to the plain commandment of God, and the license granted by the higher criticism to use one statement of the Scriptures with which to discredit another, are both plainly shown in dealing with the question of the present obligation to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. The following paragraph illustrates this:—

For the observance of Sunday we must look to different sanctions from those of the Sabbath. Even if the Hebrew sanctions did apply to our Sunday, they are too remote from our experience to have any great power. The first of these sanctions, as given in the Exodus edition of the decalogue, was that God labored six days in creating the world, and rested the seventh. This does not apply, partly because science has modified our understanding of the, “creative week;” and more, because Jesus defended his Sabbath activity by announcing, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;” that is to say, God never has rested, but puts forth his energy and power all the days of all the weeks. And the second of these sanctions, as given in the Deuteronomic edition of the decalogue, was that, in remembrance of their slavery in Egypt, from which Jehovah brought them out, they were to give their servants and beasts of burden rest. But this is too remote, because our immediate ancestors were not in bondage to the Egyptians.

In other words, the reasons given in the commandments as recorded in Exodus are not true, as proved by the conclusions of science and the testimony of Jesus himself, while the additional reason given in Deuteronomy has no force. And yet such writers as this claim to believe the Bible, and claim to interpret it to the people. This shows to what an extent infidelity is gaining ground, and how the Word of the living God is being supplanted by a merely human philosophy.