R. F. COTTRELL by R. F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 10, 1874

R. F. COTTRELL

By R. F. Cottrell

The Truth.—No. 1.

In the scriptural sense of the term, the truth is not merely something to be spoken, but something to be done. Says Jesus, “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” John 3:20, 21. Doing the truth is directly contrary to doing evil; and doing evil is sin, which is the transgression of the law; hence the deeds of truth are obedience to the law.

The word of God is truth. “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” John 17:17. Nothing can have a higher claim to be called the word of God than the ten precepts which he spoke with his own voice. Hence the Spirit of God testifies through David, “Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.” Ps. 119:142. “Thou art near, O Lord; and all thy commandments are truth.” Verse 151. The commandments, all of which are declared so emphatically to be the truth, are those which were spoken from Mount Sinai. “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws [Hebrew, laws of truth, margin.], good statutes and commandments; and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant.” Neh. 9:13, 14. The laws of truth were spoken by God himself, and written with his own hand, while the “precepts, statutes, and laws” peculiar to that dispensation, and to the Jewish commonwealth, were given “by the hand of Moses.”

The ten commandments are the truth, because they contain the only true principles of right between man and his Maker, and between man and his fellow-man. The precept, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” though negative in form, teaches the great truth that there is but one living and true God. That being the truth, idolatry of every kind, and profanity, or irreverence toward his sacred name, are manifestly wrong. And the fourth commandment expresses a great truth affirmatively, without a knowledge of which the one only true God could not be known. That truth is, that he is the maker of all things. This necessary, fundamental truth cannot be learned from any one or all the other nine. See Ex. 31:13, 17; Eze. 20:12, 20.

These commandments being the truth, to abolish them would be to abolish the truth. Those who contend for their abolition can hereby see the tendency of their efforts. And we ask those who believe that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment has been changed, Can that which is truth be changed and be the truth still? Would not the truth of God when changed become a lie? Paul teaches that those who broke the first commandment by worshiping the creature, instead of the Creator, turned the truth of God into a lie. Rom. 1:25. Let us test this matter. The fourth commandment says, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Insert the “first day” in place of the seventh, and we have the following: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. . . . The first day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the first day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

All can see at once that this is not the truth. To say that God rested upon the first day of the week, and blessed and hallowed it, is false; and “no lie is of the truth.” It is not possible to change the rest-day of the Creator to any one of the six days on which he did not rest. The truth that he rested on the seventh day, and that he blest and sanctified that day, because he had rested on it, is the truth still. This truth must be changed before any other day can become the Sabbath day, i. e., the rest-day of God.