FRANK ADMISSIONS by C. B. Reynolds

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 4, 1869

FRANK ADMISSIONS.

By C. B. Reynolds

Bro. SMITH: I wish to call especial attention to the inclosed extracts from the great Baptist journal, the Examiner & Chronicle, deeming them worth making a note of by our ministering brethren.

In their issue for Thursday, Nov. 26, 1868, we find the following leading article on Divine Authority:

“We are told that we must not insist upon a certain thing as a matter of obligation, because it is not given in the Bible with a “thus saith the Lord.” Of course the point must hold good on all points to which it is applicable. There is no obligation to keep the Lord’s day. It is not commanded. It is nowhere enjoined upon us. The New Testament forms no part of the Scriptures. No such declaration of canonical authority can be cited as our Lord has given respecting the writings of the Old Testament.”

In the same paper for Thursday, March 18, 1869, occurs the following language respecting the first day of the week:

“We are requested by a correspondent to give the exact translation of Matt. xxviii, 1. He states that he has been informed by a person who professes to have considerable exegetical knowledge, that the passage (as also Mark xvi, 2, and Luke xxi, 1,) properly translated, means, when Sabbath was passed the first of Sabbaths began to dawn, and that the language implies that the first Christian Sabbath dawned as the Jewish Sabbath ended.

“We cannot assume to speak ex cathedra. We venture only to say that such expositors as Alford, on such authority as Lightfoot, support the common translation, affirming that the Hebraistic designation of the first, second, &c., days of the week, was the first of the Sabbath, second of the Sabbath, &c. Some have imagined an implicit recognition of the Christian Sabbath in the words. But if the Hebrew usage be as stated, this suggestion must be groundless.”

Thus may we convict the upholders of error and tradition by their own witnesses. The original Greek of Matt. xxviii, 1, has been made a stumbling-block to many in this place, as brother N. Fuller can testify. This is one of the very darkest corners of the Master’s vineyard, but the persevering efforts of Bro. and Sr. Dibble, under the blessing of an ever prayer-hearing, prayer-answering God, give promise of some few more yet declaring, and what is of infinitely greater importance living out, the truth. May our Heavenly Father grant a double portion of his grace and strength, that despite all and every discouragement, his children may continue to labor faithfully, realizing the blessed truth, “Surely I come quickly, Amen, Even so come Lord Jesus.”

Yours in that blessed hope. C. B. REYNOLDS.