Your ShelfYour Projects

A GREAT MISTAKE

8%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 12.

Read the full edition

A GREAT MISTAKE.

By O. E. Jones

O. E. JONES.
(College View, Neb.)
It is a mistake to attribute to Christ the change of the fourth commandment. Christ has not said, Thou shalt rest upon the first day of the week, and labor upon the last six days. There is no record that Christ ever even mentioned the first day of the week.
In the beginning, when man was upright and holy, before there was any need of a Saviour, the Lord hallowed the seventh day, “because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Gen. 2 : 2, 3.
Jesus recognized the fact that the Sabbath was made for the whole human family; for he says, in Mark 2 : 27, “The Sabbath was made for man,”—white and black, Jew and Gentile,—all who belong to the family of Adam. And in the next verse he says, “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.”
But the Lord of the Sabbath has foretold that an antichristian power would think to change God’s times and law, as recorded in Dan. 7 : 25, R. V.: “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and he shall wear out the saints of the Most High: and he shall think to change the times and the law.”
When men can see no difference between the Sabbath, the seventh day, and the other days, it is evident that the light of the glory of God is not permitted to shine into the heart in its fullness. When the light of the glory of Jesus Christ shone upon Saul of Tarsus, the sacredness of God’s law was revealed to him as never before, and he exclaimed, “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” He continues, “I was alive without the law once [before the law had been magnified to him by the glory of Jesus Christ]: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” Rom. 3 : 20; 7 : 7, 9.
Saul had been a strict adherent to the law as taught by the blind Pharisees, who had covered the law with the traditions of men. But Jesus says, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matt. 5 : 20.
When the true character of the law had been revealed to Paul, he exclaimed, “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good.” Rom. 7 : 12.
Christ, by the apostle James, also magnifies the law as a whole, saying, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he [“that law,” margin] that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.” James 2 : 10, 11.
Therefore we see that the least deviation from God’s law is sin: for “sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3 : 4. James also calls it the law of liberty: “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” James 2 : 12.
Thus we see that perfect conformity to God’s law is perfect liberty—not liberty to sin, but freedom from sin. And this is not a thing word, impossible; for we read, in Phil. 4 : 13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Do you believe it?