Objections to the Sabbath Answered.
We are justified by faith and not by the works of the law. Answer. As there are several passages quoted on this point, I will transcribe them and answer them altogether. Rom. 1:17. “The just shall live by faith.” Exactly the same words are quoted in Gal. 3:11, and in Heb. 10:38. Rom. 3:20. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Verse 28. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Eph. 2:8. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” Many more passages to the same effect might be quoted, but these are some of the plainest. Our opponents quote these with a great flourish of trumpets, and try to make it appear that we are endeavoring to be justified, not by faith in Christ, but by keeping the law. Notwithstanding all our protests to the contrary and all our explanations, they still repeat this assertion, simply, it seems to us, because they can create a prejudice by it. When we urge them to keep God’s commandments, they say, “We are not saved by keeping the law, but by faith in Christ. Do you think keeping the Sabbath will save a man?” We reply, Can a man be saved while he continues to break the law? Can a man continue to lie or murder and still be justified and saved by faith? Certainly not. Well, then, if a man should keep those commandments against lying and murdering, would that save him? Certainly not. Then if he can not be saved by keeping those precepts, why urge him to keep them? Simply because he can not be saved unless he does keep them, and yet keeping them alone will not save him. A murderer can not be saved; and yet simply refraining from murder, and keeping that commandment, will not save him. So of any part of the law, the Sabbath as well as the rest. But the question is, Does justification by faith abolish the law and free us from keeping it? So it is claimed. Then the law was abolished 626 years before Christ by Habakkuk the prophet, for he said at that time the same as Paul did after him, “The just shall live by faith.” Chap. 2:4. Paul only quotes this from him. But this is abolishing the law a little too soon, even for our opponents. But let us come directly at the root of the matter. Why is it that the sinner is justified by faith and not by the deeds of the law? The reason may be thus stated: It is the duty of every man to do just right all his life, and not do wrong once. This is a self-evident truth. Thus Christ says, “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” Luke 17:10. If a man should live seventy years he should strictly keep God’s law all the time. But suppose that he lives a sinner, steals, swears, &c., till just half his life is gone, till he is thirty-five years old. Now he concludes that he will sin no more for fear he will be damned at the Judgment. So he turns square about and never does wrong again the last half of his life. He strictly keeps God’s law. Now will this obedience of his justify his past transgression? Will it atone for his former sins? No. Why not? Because during the last half of his life he simply does just what he ought to have done during that time even if he had never done wrong before. He ought to have done just right from his birth to his death; now doing this the last half of his life, is simply doing what is justly due his God during that last thirty-five years, provided he had never lived the first thirty-five years in sin. To illustrate: I trade at the store for a year and run into debt $100. Beginning with the first day of the next year I promptly pay as I go for everything. At the end of the second year, the merchant asks me to pay that $100 contracted the year before. Would he not be astonished if I should tell him that I had paid that debt by simply paying for all I got as I went along the last year? Does keeping out of debt in the future pay up past debts? No. Neither does obedience to God’s law in the future atone for past sins. Forty years ago a man in New York committed murder. He was not discovered. Now he is arrested and proved guilty. He confesses that he did it, but demands to be set free because he has kept the law ever since, and never murdered another man. But he ought to have kept the law all his life, and never murdered even one man. Simply refraining from murder in the future did not atone for that one murder. In short, a just law never should be violated, even once. So if a man once violates it, it is utterly and forever out of his power to pay for that one transgression by future obedience, for he ought to obey it all the time if he had never transgressed it at all. We have all violated the law of God some time in our lives. Now if we should keep the law ever so strictly in the future it could not possibly wipe out those past sins. Hence it is that Christ had to die “for the remission of sins that are past.” Rom. 3:25. Christ comes in to pardon and take away those past sins which it is out of our power to remove or atone for. All who repent of these sins and believe in Jesus are offered pardon. This pardon is granted for Christ’s sake, and not for our good deeds, for even the best are sinners. Could a sinner ever save himself by obedience to the law of God? Certainly not. Were not all men sinners before the time of Christ as well as since? Surely. Will not some of them be saved? Yes. How? By their good works? by keeping the law of God? No; but by faith, faith in Christ. But did not these men before the coming of Christ have to keep the law of God, the ten commandments? We know they did. Could they be saved and not keep them? All know they could not. If, then, faith did not free them from keeping the law, why will it free us from it? No; there is no reason, nor Scripture either, for teaching that we need not keep the law because we are justified by faith and not by works. Abraham was justified by faith, Rom. 4:1–3, and yet how carefully he kept the commandments. Gen. 26:5. So Paul, in Rom. 3, after strongly arguing that a man cannot be justified by the law, but only by faith, yet adds: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” Verse 31. Be it known then that we are not seeking justification from our sins by keeping the law, but only through faith in the divine Son of God. Yet we do not therefore claim a license to sin, to steal, lie, or murder, nor to break the Sabbath either. Be careful, my friend, that you do not trample on one of God’s commandments under the vain plea that you believe in Jesus, for he has said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” Matt. 7:21.