CAUSE AND EFFECT by J. O. Corliss

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 3, 1879

CAUSE AND EFFECT.

By J. O. Corliss

The query sometimes arises how Eph. 4:30 can be harmonized with the view that the seal of God, mentioned in Rev. 7:2 and kindred texts, has reference to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. The only difficulty in this case seems to be the failure to discern the difference between cause and effect.

To illustrate the point: If a United States official would put his seal of office to any document, he must have a seal; yet the seal would not impress its mark upon the paper without the application of some motive power. In this case the official could be truthfully said to be the sealer, since he uses the seal to cause the effect.

So it is with the seal of God's law,—the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. The Holy Spirit is the agent which impresses that law, with its seal, upon the heart. Among the events mentioned in the seventh chapter of Revelation, this seal, or sign of God's authority—which has virtually been dropped from his law, and to a certain extent lost

sight of—is restored, and imprinted upon the people. This is the effect produced by accepting the law entire, and carrying it out in the life. As in the illustration the seal could not accomplish its work without the aid of an agent, so in Eph. 4:30 the Holy Spirit is represented as the power that causes impressions by which men become subject to God's authority, thus stamping the seal of God upon them. The Sabbath, then, is the seal, and the Holy Spirit the sealer.

J. O. CORLISS.