What is the Chaff to the Wheat?
By Lyle Shepard
When we present the obligations of the fourth commandment to the people, there are always some who say, “God is not so particular as all that; he surely doesn’t care on which day we rest.” If they would weigh what they are saying, any such could readily see that when one keeps the “first day,” though the Scripture plainly states that the “seventh” is the one to keep, they are placing the commandments of men above the commandments of God; for the two conflict. What would the Saviour say to such if he were on earth today? In the first nine verses of Matthew 15 we have it clearly shown just what Christ’s attitude would be, were he among men. “Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? . . . But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honor thy father and mother.” The Lord here condemns them for disregarding the fifth commandment, which states a man’s obligation to his parents. There was a custom among the Jews that permitted a person to dedicate his property to the temple, and by so doing release himself from all the claims that a parent had on him. “But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother.” “They taught the people that the devotion of their property to the temple was a duty more sacred than even the support of their parents; and that, however great the necessity, it was sacrilege to impart to father or mother any part of what had been thus consecrated. An undutiful child had only to pronounce the word ‘Corban’ over his property, thus devoting it to God, and he could retain it for his own use during his lifetime, and after his death it was to be appropriated to the temple service.”—“The Desire of Ages,” pages 396, 397. Jesus said, “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Here Christ rebukes his hearers for disobeying a commandment that sets forth a man’s duty to his fellow man. Would he not even more severely denounce their disregard for the fourth commandment, which affects the duty of the individual to his Creator? Today, men, keeping the traditions of men for the commandments of God, are outwardly very religious, so zealous for God that they court the support of government to force men to keep Sunday. The Reformers of the sixteenth century had a similar issue to meet. The laws enforced the traditions of the Fathers. At the disputation at Leipzig Dr. Eck, the noted church debater, said in ironical words to Luther, “I am surprised at the humility and modesty with which the reverend doctor undertakes to oppose, alone, so many illustrious fathers, and pretends to know more than the sovereign pontiffs, the councils, the doctors, and the universities! . . . It would be surprising, no doubt, if God had hidden the truth from so many saints and martyrs until the advent of the reverend father.” How did the noble men of this period meet such arguments? Let us use Zwingli’s words to John Faber: “Error was not less error because the belief of it had lasted fourteen hundred years, and that in the worship of God antiquity of usage was nothing unless ground or warrant for it could be found in the sacred Scriptures.” Luther likewise answers: “He who has been wrong for one hundred years was not right for one hour. If the years should make wrong right, the devil would well deserve to be the most just one on earth, for he is now over five thousand years old.” We do well to follow their example. The fact that Sunday has been kept and God’s law thus disregarded for centuries, makes the error all the grosser and all the harder to rectify. Let us take heed lest we waver in the trying times just10before us. Jesus declares, “In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. . . . Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” And we have this consolation in Matt. 24:13, that “He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”