ANSWERS TO LETTERS ON THE OPEN LETTER.
By S. D. Heady
ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., June 6, 1900. DEAR SIR: Your two letters are at hand, and contents carefully noted. I reply through the REVIEW AND HERALD. My apology for so doing is that since I wrote the open letter printed in the REVIEW AND HERALD of May 8, I have received many letters; and as it is inconvenient for me to answer them separately, I take this way of answering all that refer to the law of God and man's relation to it. On page 1 of your letter to me you say: “The first error is in attempting to teach the great Bible truths with a carnal mind. ‘The carnal mind . . . is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.’” Rather inconsistent, it seems to me, for you to refer to this scripture when nearly the whole of your letter is pointed directly against the law of God. The carnal mind is indeed enmity against the law of God, is not subject to it, neither indeed can be. Now, Mr. Doan, I ask you, in all sincerity, In what light does the scripture which you quote to me, put you? You are trying to do away with God’s holy law, saying, “It came to an end at the crucifixion.” I say that it is binding now on the whole Christian world, and that Christians ought to keep it as it is written. Now I know that I am carnal, sold under sin. And in what light do the Scriptures show that you are? “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Gal. 5: 9. “Anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see.” “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” Again: did not Christ come to call the sinner to repentance? If so, would not the sinner, still in the carnal mind, have to decide whether this call of Christ, and the doctrine of Christ, were right or wrong? I can not see why a man with a carnal mind can not discern between right and wrong, in either a worldly or a spiritual sense. I know many men who are professed Christians, and some of them swear: do you suppose that I, a carnally minded man, can not see that their profession is vain? Are they any better than I am? I do not profane the name of the Deity. And I know of a certainty that any one who transgresses the law of the Most High is not a child of God, according to God’s word. On page 2 of your letter you say that all Christian churches, as far as you have been able to learn, believe, with Paul, that sin is the transgression of the law. Hence if people have an erroneous conception of the law of God, it will lead to erroneous living. You speak of my special allusion to what you call the Christian sabbath. Now, from a Bible standpoint, I know nothing of a Christian sabbath. As there is nothing about such an institution in the Bible, it follows that the “Christian” sabbath is a doctrine of man only, and is of no consequence. And if you teach for doctrine the commandments of men, then your worship is vain. See Matt. 15: 9. That is all there is about it, and my question in the open letter still remains unanswered—Where do the Scriptures tell you to keep Sunday for the Sabbath, or Lord’s day? A First-day sabbath is unknown to the entire Bible; it is a fiction from beginning to end; and if men were to talk on any worldly subject with no more proof of what they advocate than the advocates of Sunday sacredness have for what they advocate, people would think that they were not sincere, or else that they were not just right in their minds. I do not say this in any spirit of derision; but simply state it as a fact. In speaking of this and kindred subjects, my one rule is, Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may; and the line is the Bible testimony, by which we must be judged in the last day. What any of us think, will make no difference at that time. When professed Bible teachers will teach the Bible as Christ says,—“all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28: 20),—and not go back and dig up the errors of heathen mythology, and try to palm them off as Scripture, then, my dear sir, we carnally minded can see that Christians are sincere, and are a good people; and even their enemies will say that they are a good people. For verily we can not do anything against the truth, but it will in the end be for the truth. Now notice some of the statements made by Sunday advocates, and these statements have all been made to me, every one of them: “I think we ought to keep Sunday in honor of Christ’s resurrection on that day.” “I think.” Wonderful evidence of God’s will in what any one thinks, is there not? “I know there is no direct command to keep the Sunday, but it is the day that has been set apart by religious people for that purpose; and it is good enough for me.” But is it good enough for the Judgment? Some time ago when a Methodist minister had been telling me, in substance, about what you tell me in your letter, I said to him: “But, Elder, give me the chapter and verse, and that will end the controversy.” “O well,” he said, “if you look for a direct command, you will not find it.” I then asked, “Why can’t I find it? or why can’t you find it?” Shaking his head, he said, “Conductor, it is not in the Bible.” Now, Mr. Doan, I might cite many such conversations with the clergy, and if you are an honest man, and you and I were together, I could make you acknowledge the same thing; namely, there is not one command in the entire Bible for Sunday observance. And if there is no divine law against Sunday work, then no man on earth will ever merit God’s displeasure by working on Sunday. And he will not commit a sin by doing on Sunday anything that would be no sin to do any other day of the week; for when there is no law, sin is not imputed. You speak of Paul’s setting apart the first day of the week for religious worship, by positive command and religious work. Mr. Doan, how many lawgivers does your Bible tell you there are? James 4: 12 tells me, “There is one lawgiver.” The scriptures which you refer to have no bearing on First-day sacredness, but exactly the opposite. 1 Cor. 16: 2; Acts 20: 7; Col. 2: 16; Eph. 2: 14, 15. Do you not know that these scriptures have no bearing on Sunday sacredness? And if you can not see the truth of the Bible in this respect, you certainly must be as carnal as I am, or even more so; for I can see it very plainly. You may say, perhaps, that I wish to see it so. I answer, I wish to see the Bible truths just as they are, without having them obscured with any of the mists and fogs of men’s tradition.403 I know that I am carnal, but still I wish to see professed Christians live up to the Bible. And when they preach the Bible, and the Bible alone, believing, with Paul, all things written in the law and the prophets, we carnal men who wish to do better will not be bewildered and discouraged by their unbelief of the Bible and their disobedience of the law of God. And when you professed Christians will preach the Bible, and nothing but the Bible, neither you nor anyone else will ever hear anything more about that man-made institution called only by finite men “the Christian sabbath.” Then all will exclaim, with Jesus: “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” And now before answering your questions concerning the two covenants, I will ask you a question regarding your letter. You quote, “The carnal mind . . . is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” True! But in what spiritual light does that scripture put you? You tell me that the decalogue “is done away.” If so, what law is it that Paul daily delighted in? and where in the Scriptures is it written? and to whom was it given? and when was it given? and what precepts does it contain? and how long after the decalogue was done away before this law that was Paul’s delight was written? and during the interval was the world without a law? If so, then during that time there was no sin in the world; “for where no law is, there is no transgression.” You say that “at the crucifixion the decalogue came to an end.” If that is true, why did the followers of Christ rest on “the Sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23: 56), and on the first day of the week come to embalm him—to do what they would not do on the Sabbath day according to the commandment? Do you suppose divine power forgot to tell those followers of Christ that it would be unnecessary for them to keep the Sabbath any more? Let all persons who have the Oxford Bible turn to the index, and below the words, “Sabbath—first day of the week kept as,” notice the omission of Luke’s testimony, in Luke 23: 56; notice that the records of all the Gospels are given there except the one in Luke. Why is it omitted? what would such testimony do to First-day sacredness, as beginning at the cross? Mr. Doan, can’t you see the fallacy and the presumptuousness of your own position? A law without any one having a copy of it! It is sheer nonsense. I was brought up in the Baptist faith, and supposed that Christ changed the day; and I did not know that there was no Scripture for First-day observance until a few years ago, when I heard a minister say: “If the advocates of First-day sacredness had just one command for a religious observance of the day, they would have just one more than they have got.” At that time I was a little doubtful as to the truth of his statement; but now I know from a personal study of the subject that he told the Bible truth, and the man does not live who can disprove what that preacher of righteousness said at that time. On page 4 of your letter you say, “One conclusive text is as good as a dozen so far as the teaching of the Scriptures is concerned.” Yes; and when you, Mr. Doan, produce that conclusive text for Sunday observance, we will consider it; but so far you have failed to do so. The covenant question needs careful study. There are several covenants spoken of in the Scriptures. Begin with Gen. 15: 18, and read all of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and twenty-first chapters; then read Gal. 4: 21-30, especially verse 24—“for these are the two covenants,” etc. The old and new covenants are mentioned in Heb. 8: 6-12. When God took the children of Israel by the hand and led them out of Egypt, he made a covenant with them, which they disregarded. Now in Ex. 19: 5-8, in the third month after the children of Israel left the land of Egypt, when they came to Sinai, we find the covenant which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. And in that covenant the people promised obedience to God’s voice. But they had not yet heard his voice. And when they did hear his voice, it was in the speaking of his law, the decalogue, as in Ex. 20: 2-17. Thus that covenant was made before ever the law was spoken at all. Then it is impossible for the law to be that covenant. Then Ex. 24: 3-8 tells us that Moses took blood and sprinkled the altar; and that he “took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people,” and again “they said, All that the Lord hath said we will do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT which the Lord HATH MADE with you concerning all of these words.” What words?—The words spoken by the Lord,—the ten commandments,—which, before they heard them, they had covenanted to obey. And now that they had heard them, they confirm their covenant, and Moses sprinkles the people and the book of the covenant. Thus we find that the first covenant was dedicated with blood. The apostle Paul tells us plainly, in Heb. 8: 18, that the first testament—covenant—was not dedicated without blood. For Moses took “the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament [the covenant] which God hath enjoined unto you.” Just read the whole of Hebrews 8, 9, 10; and beyond a doubt the first covenant spoken of in the foregoing scriptures is the one that is spoken of in Exodus 19, the ratification of which is mentioned in the twenty-fourth chapter. And notice that the ten commandments were not yet in the possession of the children of Israel, only as they had been spoken by the Lord. After the account of the ratifying of the covenant, God said unto Moses: “Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them. . . . And Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.” Ex. 24: 12-18. Now remember that the covenant was finished before this time, and Moses had sprinkled both the people and the book of the covenant with blood, and had told the people that it was the blood of the covenant that the Lord had made with them, concerning the words which as yet they had only heard spoken. Therefore the ten commandments were no part of the first covenant, except as being that to which the covenant related as its basis. Two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God, were given to Moses in the mount. Ex. 32: 15, 16. “And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.” But when Moses saw the idolatry of the people, he broke these tables. Verse 19. The Lord then told him to prepare two other tables “like unto the first.” Ex. 34: 1. Moses did as the Lord commanded him; and he was in the mount the second time forty days. Verse 28. So we see that it was at least eighty days after the covenant was ratified before Israel had a written copy of the ten commandments. So your position that the ten commandments were the first covenant is broken by its own weight, from any standpoint you may look at it. Now please notice again that the first covenant was dedicated with blood, yet at that time the ten commandments were not in the possession of the children of Israel in written form, in any form in which they could be dedicated—sprinkled—with blood. And I have never seen in the Scriptures, neither have you, where the ten commandments were ever dedicated with blood. This, then, again shows a clear distinction between that covenant and the ten commandments. Therefore the old covenant was not in any sense the ten commandments; and if it had not been for sinful finite man’s trying to evade the force of God’s holy Sabbath, all this talk of the ten commandments being the old covenant, would never have existed. No, Mr. Doan, the First-day advocates’ covenant question gets them into deeper water than they can get through. On page 4 you say, “I think I have made plain that the old Jewish Sabbath came to an end with the crucifixion of Christ.” I answer, As plain as the noonday sun at midnight; but not one bit plainer; for every text you have quoted, to the carnal minded as I am, shows the exact opposite of what you claim for it. And then you conclude that “when Paul speaks of the Sabbath, he means some other day than the seventh day” (page 5 of your letter); for if it were not so, “it would have God acting very unwisely.” I answer that in my carnal mind I can not judge as to the actions of an all-wise God; and I fear for any of the spiritually minded who presume to judge of his actions. But to note the arguments you draw, on what Paul says of keeping the Sabbath. You say that the only day as to which inspiration issues a positive religious command is Sunday, the first day of the week (1 Cor. 16: 2); and then you say, See if he does not meet with his disciples on the Sabbath, and preach to them; see if he does not use the Sabbath for religious meetings; and if, as we have seen, the old seventh-day Sabbath was abolished at the cross, it could not be the seventh day, as Paul by positive command sets apart the first day for religious work. And then you ask me if I can “conceive any other way for a day to be sanctified.” Well, yes; it would seem to me that if the eternal Jehovah had said that he had sanctified it, it would be of a little more force than it would to have Paul sanctifying it through the aid of modern theology; and more especially as Paul had been dead for more than seventeen hundred years before any one ever found out that he did sanctify it. And as far as the record of Paul’s sanctification of the day goes, Paul never knew that he did sanctify it. And when he declared “all the counsel of God,” he omitted the sanctification part of Sunday. Therefore I conclude, with my carnal mind, that Sunday sacredness is a stupendous fiction, unsupported by any part of the Bible. You refer me to Acts 13: 42-44; 17: 2; 18: 4; and 20: 7. All except the last text have a direct reference to the Sabbath of the Lord. But as you assume that “Paul must have meant some other day than the seventh by the reference to the Sabbath,” there is one other text you should have noticed, as it would give additional light on the subject; namely, Matt. 24: 20. Of course as far as the record goes, Christ, in describing this time many years in the future, did not tell his followers that there was to be a change of the day; still the text has a bearing on this question of the change of the day as much as has any text in the whole Bible: and that is to the effect that neither the text I have quoted nor any one of the texts that you have quoted, has any more bearing on the change of the Sabbath than they have on the ordinance of baptism. In your concluding remarks on page 7, you say: “When you have sought and obtained a404new heart and mind, you will then be better able to appreciate the impregnable force of the scriptures quoted.” I will reply by saying, I beg to be excused on the new-mind question, if, when I get that new mind, I shall have to do away with every principle of the law of language, in order to understand a book that is called a revelation from the Creator to the created. But in my carnal state I can fully understand and appreciate all the texts quoted. And there is not one of them that has any bearing on the change of God’s holy law. In conclusion, I will say to you: In Isa. 35: 8 it is said that the way of holiness is so plain that “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Profession does not make any one any better than I am. All who do not belong to Christ belong to the other side. God knows to whom we all belong. We can not deceive him, even if we do deceive ourselves. Paul plainly tells us of a class of teachers that would arise who would not spare the flock, etc. See if you can not see that kind of teachers right here in our land? “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” They change the truth of God into a lie. They say “Thus saith the Lord,” when the Lord has not spoken. These and many other scriptures we can see fulfilled right here in our fair land. We know to a Bible certainty that many of our ministers preach error. And many of them know it too. Look at the popular church festivals, etc., “for the good of the church,” as is said; when God in his infinite Word has commanded the paying of tithe. It is a plain Bible doctrine, yet it too is overrun with the popular society of the self-styled Christians. I tell you, Mr. Doan, it is simply awful. I will conclude by saying that nothing in this letter is said to hurt the feelings of any one. I believe that all professors should do right and preach righteousness at all times. I most sincerely hope that the scales may fall from your eyes, and also from the eyes of all other professed Christians; and that all may see themselves in the true Bible light, and finally find a home with the redeemed, and enjoy eternal life in the new earth. Yours most sincerely for the truth,
and the truth only,
S. D. HEADY.