The Law of God by R. F. Cottrell

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Dec 28, 1876

The Law of God.

By R. F. Cottrell

There are those who are determined to have the ten commandments abolished, all to excuse their violation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. They have seen that the attempt to prove a change of the day of the Sabbath, so as to enforce the keeping of the first day of the week by the commandment, is an utter failure. The Sabbath with the Israelites was a definite day, distinguished by God’s providence in the giving of manna on “the six working days,” and the withholding of it on the seventh; and it was enforced by a penalty on them as a nation. They can also see no way to abolish the Sabbath commandment alone, striking it out of the midst of those moral laws where it was placed by the finger of God; therefore the only thing left is the abolition of the whole code.

To succeed in this they affirm that the ten commandments were the old covenant, which was to vanish away, and that in the Scriptures “the law never means the ten commandments.” Why assert this? Because Christ teaches the perpetuity of every jot and tittle of the law, “till heaven and earth pass;” therefore they wish to make it appear that the term, the law, does not refer to the ten commandments. In the next verse, however, the Saviour changes the term to commandments, a term generally applied in the New Testament to the ten. See Matt. 15: 1–6; 19: 17, 18; Eph. 6: 1–3.

Now let us see whether the Scriptures teach that the ten commandments are the law of God. Exodus 24: 12: “And the Lord 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.” Now what law or commandments had God himself written? The ten commandments, nothing more or less—the commandments which he spoke to all the people from Sinai, as recorded in the twentieth of Exodus. Here is the proof. “These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud,

and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.” Deut. 5: 22. If the law and the commandments which God had written were one and the same, why does he say, “a law and commandments?” To make it emphatic, it is a figure of speech called pleonasm, which is the introduction of superfluous words to impress an idea more strongly, as: “All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers upon the earth.” See Brown’s Grammar, p. 256. This figure is often used in the Bible: as when we read, “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws,” we need not search for a separate thing to answer to each one of these terms. It signifies that he obeyed God in all his established laws, and did all that he bid him on every occasion.

Our “old covenant” friends tell us that the law spoken of by Jesus in Matt. 5: 17, 18, was “the law which related to him in types;” but that the commandments referred to in the next verse were those which “he was then giving to his disciples.” But it is evident that “these commandments” are identical with the law of which he has just affirmed the perpetuity till the end of time; for it is a conclusion drawn from what he had said of the law. Said he, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments,” &c. Our Saviour’s discourse is connected and logical. He does not, with the appearance of drawing a conclusion from what he has just said of the law, leap off to some commandments he was about to give; for what our friends claim as the commandments of Jesus are in the subsequent part of the discourse.

Is it not evident that the law, and the commandments here affirmed, are those which David, by the Spirit, says are the truth. “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.” Vs. 151. To abolish these would be to abolish truth. Let us inquire what they are, and when, where, how, and by whom they were proclaimed. Here is the testimony: “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from Heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws [mar., Heb., laws of truth], 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. This answers our inquiry. The laws of truth were given by Jehovah, with his own voice, at Mount Sinai, when he spoke to the assembled hosts of Israel. The ten commandments including the “holy Sabbath,” were spoken by God, and are clearly distinguished from the precepts, statutes, and laws, given “by the hand of Moses.” Of those given by the hand of Moses some were moral, like the ten commandments, and some were ceremonial and typical; but every principle of righteousness and truth is embodied in the ten commandments; and this law of truth shall endure as long as heaven and earth, as our Saviour teaches. Have we proved that the ten commandments are laws of God?

A recent writer quotes this text, Neh. 9: 13, 14, only he corrupts it by making it read, “the,” instead of “thy holy Sabbath,” and then says, “Here is a time specified when the Lord made known unto the Jews their Sabbath, implying very clearly that it was a new day, not observed by their fathers.” The Italics are his; and the superficial reader might think that it was their Sabbath and a new day made known at Sinai for the first time. But what are the facts? Nehemiah, addressing God, says “thy holy Sabbath.” What is the Lord’s Sabbath? The day on which he rested. Sabbath means rest. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD THY GOD.” Why? Because he “rested the seventh day.” For this reason “the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Was this Sabbath made known to Israel for the first time, when God spoke to them from Sinai? No; for they were keeping it before they reached that place. See Ex. 16. So the argument on making known their Sabbath, a new day is mere sophistry of the baldest kind. What to him is so clearly implied, to others must be as clear as mud. To show his fairness in quoting Scripture, I give the text as he gives it on another page. “The Jewish rest-day was peculiar to them, hence we read the Lord made ‘known unto them’ the ‘holy Sabbath . . . by the hand of Moses.’” It may be well enough to abridge a text, if the true meaning is preserved; but this quotation makes the text say what it does not say, but contrary to it. And this is a sample of all that can be said against the ten commandments, as the universal and perpetual law of God. Paul quotes from the ten commandments as the law. “I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” Rom. 7: 7. And of the same law he says in another place, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” Rom. 3: 31.

Is it come to this, that “God’s ten words, which not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation, are the most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality,” are claimed to have been abolished, by professed ministers of the gospel? As well might they throw away the whole Bible as to reject that law which is the only code, distinguished and honored by being given to man in the hand-writing of the Almighty. What evil may we not expect, when sin has come to be so bold as this? R. F. COTTRELL.