p. 130 | DEVOURED HIMSELF by C. W. Stone

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 24, 1879

DEVOURED HIMSELF.

By C. W. Stone

Yesterday Eld. Evans, pastor of the M. E. church, preached at South Troy upon the Sabbath question. I reviewed his discourse in the evening before a full house. None of the positions taken were new, yet it may be of interest to notice some of them here.

He stated that the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week did not abrogate the law. In another connection, speaking of Col. 2: 16, he claimed that the “sabbath days” of that text refer to the seventh-day Sabbath; that the Greek word sabbaton, here rendered “sabbath days,” always refers in the New Testament to the seventh day.

It is true that whenever the seventh day of the week, or the Sabbath, is spoken of in the New Testament, this is the Greek word used; but the same word refers to the ceremonial annual sabbaths of the Jews. Greenfield’s Lexicon thus defines the word: “Sabbaton, cessation from labor, rest; the Sabbath, i. e., the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, both in the singular and plural. Matt. 12: 2, 5, 8. . . . Plural, all the sabbaths, or times of sacred rest, Col. 2: 16.”

Thus we have the authority of the learned Greenfield for applying the word to other sabbaths and seasons of sacred rest, and he cites this text as an example. The sabbaths here named are those annual sabbaths connected with meats and drinks, and pointing forward to Christ.

But let us notice how Eld. Evans’s positions devour one another. Paul, in Col. 2: 14–17, speaks of a law that was abrogated: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances, . . . took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.” And he adds, “Let no man therefore [for that reason] judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.” That is to say, Because that law is abrogated, blotted out, let no man judge you in respect of those sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come. Then it is very plain that those sabbath days are ones that were formerly observed by virtue of that law which is now nailed to the cross, abrogated; for the abrogation of that law is the reason assigned by Paul why those days need no longer be observed. But Eld. Evans says that changing the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week does not abrogate the law. That is, it is not because of the abrogation of the law that we are excused from keeping the seventh day; and that by the law he had direct reference to the decalogue is shown by his next words: “The obligation of the fourth commandment is met by keeping the first day.” Now if the fourth commandment is not abrogated, then the “sabbath days” of Col. 2: 16, commanded by a law which is abrogated, have no reference to the “Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” commanded by the fourth precept of the decalogue. Thus Eld. Evans, by his own words, debars himself from any right to apply anything in Col. 2: 16 to the Sabbath of Ex. 20: 8–11.

Eld. E. referred to the law forbidding the building of fires on the Sabbath day, and said that in the northern regions under such a law men would never keep but one Sabbath, the idea being that they would freeze to death. In another connection he said that the seventh-day Sabbath was suited to the old dispensation. Putting these two thoughts near each other, we are led to inquire how it was that such a Sabbath under such a law could be suited to the old dispensation. Were the northern regions warm in those days? Were men more capable of enduring cold? Or did they deserve freezing? But Eld. E. says that the Sabbath was suited to that dispensation. Then he very well knows that the command respecting fires was only a local one, applicable only in the warm region where the Jews then were. They had no need of fires except to do work, and this was forbidden on the Sabbath.

In speaking of the difference between the two Sabbaths, Eld. Evans said, that “in this new Sabbath [Sunday] the law allows fires to be built, or at least there is no law against it.” Indeed! That is a very safe statement. It is quite certain that there is no law in the Bible to prevent our building all the fires we please on Sunday.

“It looks incompatible with the great God,” said Eld. E., “that a particular day, and no other, should be observed, when it is impossible.” He proceeded to show that it is not possible, because while people in our part of the world are beginning the Sabbath, others are at work, for the world is round! In almost the next moment he quoted Ps. 118: 24, and called it a prophecy of the new first-day Sabbath, and said that the disciples began its observance at the cross.

The query arises, Why should the great God, after seeing that it is “impossible” to keep “a particular day, and no other,” on a round world, having demonstrated it for four thousand years with the seventh day,—why should he command men to undertake a like “impossible” thing with the first day? Does it not look rather “incompatible”?

It looks “incompatible” with a Bible student, with integrity, and with a sound theory, that a doctrine should be defended by arguments so contradictory. Opponents of the truth will take the easiest way to calm their hearers, even to contradicting their own positions. Truth will run in parallel lines. Error crosses itself at every turn.

C. W. STONE.

South Troy, Vt., April 6.