p. 282 | THE TEN COMMANDMENTS NOT ABOLISHED

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 13, 1877

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS NOT ABOLISHED.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

A REVIEW—BY ELDER J. H. WAGGONER.

(Concluded.)

“(9) BUT is the seventh-day Sabbath abolished? Yes, utterly. When the law died, that died. When that glorious law, ‘written and engraven on tables of stone,’ was ‘abolished,’ ‘done away,’ etc., it was entire. No vestige remains to dispute the right of obedience with Christ. The law of Christ is now the believer’s only rule of life. Nobody was ever under it till God gave it for a sign between him and Israel. Eze. 20:20, and Ex. 31. Nor has it ever bound anybody since the substance or body which cast the shadow was reached. That it ended there, Paul teaches most clearly. Col. 2:13–17: ‘And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect to an 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.’ The sabbath days, the whole of them, were then taken away, abolished, nailed to the cross, as well as meats and drinks, new moons, and holy days. ‘So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman [Mount Sinai, in Arabia], but of the free [the New Jerusalem].’ ‘Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.’ Gal. 4:31, and 5:1. But is there no Sabbath now? No; not like that of Moses; that if you pick up a stick, or kindle a fire on that day, you shall be stoned to death.”

1. That part of the above which relates to the abolition of the law has already been noticed.

2. The Sabbath was truly a sign between God and Israel, but for what? That they might know that he was the true God that made heaven and earth. See the texts. And it is such a sign still; it is yet true that God made all things in six days; that he rested the seventh day; that he blessed and hallowed the rest-day; and that he commanded that it be kept holy. The “word of the Lord endureth forever.”

3. The seventh-day Sabbath is never spoken of as a shadow; and this very qualification of the apostle shows that the above is a perversion of the Scriptures. The sabbath days referred to in Col. 2, are defined to be “shadows of things to come.” There were yearly sabbaths in the law of Moses, which were shadows of the work of Christ, and to these the text refers; but the seventh-day Sabbath, being a memorial of a work in the past, and having no reference in its institution or commandment to anything future, is of course excluded from the text. Any person can see this at a glance. The candid must acknowledge it.

4. The freedom of the gospel is freedom from sin; but the intent of the above quotation is to prove that gospel freedom is solely freedom from obligation to obey the law of God! We invite the readers to draw anything else from the argument if they can. The Saviour said his Father’s law was in his heart, and he delighted to do his will. Ps. 40:8. He gave the Father’s will as a test of the heavenly origin of his doctrines. John 7:16, 17. Paul further defined the will of God to be his law; Rom. 2:17, 18; and shows that the gospel takes away the carnal mind, and restores us to obedience to the law, as we have already proved. But, judging from the argument now under review, the only bondage that the children of men were ever under was the obligation to keep God’s law, and the only liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free is liberty to transgress his Father’s law at our will and pleasure! Again, I say, such freedom we do not covet; we love the restraints of a holy law, and thank God for a rule that is so just, that convinces us of sin when we go astray, that leads us to look away from weak and sinful self to Christ for justification. We have no fault to find with the law; like one of old, we will leave our complaint upon ourself; or say with the apostle, ‘For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.’ Can our opponents place themselves along side the apostle in this sentiment? They will not. There is a world-wide difference between them and Paul on this subject.

“(10) But there is the first day of the week; the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which from that time has always been a day of rest and worship to his disciples. He has honored, owned, and blessed its observance, and put a mark of his displeasure on those who disregard and profane it. Constantine did not institute the first day of the week as the Sabbath; but he found it in universal observance among Christians, as a Christian institution, and threw around it the protection of law, that Christians should not be disturbed in their devotions and rest, just the same as most, if not all, the States of this Union have done. Whatever Christ saw fit to transfer from the Mosaic to the Christian system, he or his apostles brought forward and re-affirmed; and that is binding on Christians, but nothing more.”

Thus closes the article; and seldom do we find more assumptions without proof, and without the possibility of being proved, than in the above.

1. There is no proof that the first day was observed by Christians from the time of the resurrection.

2. There is no proof that He has “honored, owned, and blessed its observance,” or put a mark of displeasure upon those who disregard it. How shall we know this to be so? Must we take the writer’s word for it? Does not the word still remain, that “by the law is the knowledge of sin?” If it is sinful to “profane” the first day of the week, where is the law which proves it so? We know that in the book referred to in the beginning of this review, it is claimed that the law is so, “changed or completed” as to enforce the keeping of Sunday. But how is a law which is “utterly abolished,” of which “not a vestige remains,” to enforce the keeping of the first day of the week? Is that the authority they find for keeping Sunday? When they undertake to wield the sword, they should be careful as to which way it cuts.

3. Inasmuch as there is no law for the observance of Sunday, such observance is “will-worship,” and is denounced by the apostle in his epistle to the Colossians. As was said by one of the past century, that is not obedience for which there is no commandment.

4. We admit that “Constantine did not institute the first day of the week as the Sabbath;” for neither he nor any other had yet called it the Sabbath at that time. He enforced it under the name of “the venerable day of the sun” (Sun’s day—Sunday), which was the only veneration paid to it at that time. And, says the writer, “he threw around it the protection of law.” Yes; and this was the first protection of the kind it had ever received; so says Alexander Campbell, and all

history attests its correctness. But the Scripture says, “Where no law is, there is no transgression;” therefore, as there was no law for Sunday-keeping till Constantine, so the “profanation” of Sunday, spoken of above, could not exist till his decree went forth! If our opponents dissent, will they please point to the law that existed previously? Give us the “law and the testimony” for keeping Sunday, and the controversy ceases at once.

5. Whatever Christ saw fit to transfer from the law to the Christian system, is now binding, says the writer. Well, what did he transfer? He does not tell us, but perhaps he would say all of the ten commandments except the fourth. We could, however, disprove it by his own position on Acts 15, where he avers that they were not transferred or given to the Gentiles! But allowing them to take both positions, as they generally do, we would inquire, If the commandments, Thou shalt not kill, nor commit adultery, nor steal, are not transferred into the Christian system, why do you keep them? “Is it for form? or for justification?” If for form, it is mockery; but if for justification, then it is vain; for justification by law is impossible. I challenge any one to show that a moral obligation can be so related as to justify a sinner. Again, I refer to Mr. Campbell, who declares it an impossibility to be justified by the same instrument which convicts of sin. In this dilemma our opponents are placed; seeking justification by these laws, or keeping them for form, if they keep them at all, which we should certainly doubt from their own arguments. They have but one instrument to condemn and justify, to slay and make alive. Their theology is consistent neither with reason nor justice, nor even with itself.

Yet these men, throwing aside the holy law, which Paul abundantly shows convinces of sin, and thereby proves to our awakened consciences that we need a Saviour, accuse us of denying Christ, the blessed Son of God, because, like him, we strive to keep his Father’s commandments!

We contend that no one can appreciate the sacrifice and mediation of Christ, and the pardon offered through him, who does not regard the law of God as holy, just, good, and of perpetual obligation. The certainty of condemnation, and the necessity of pardon, are based on the power and immutability of the law. Yet they who urge that the law is abolished accuse us of disregarding the gospel, and themselves profess to be the true servants of God! We are reminded of the words of Andrew Fuller, who wrote:—

“An atonement has respect to justice, and justice to the law or rule which men have violated. If this be worthy of being traduced by a servant of Christ, it was worthy of the same treatment from his Lord and Master; and then, instead of being honored by his life and death, it ought to have been annulled, both in respect of him and of us. The doctrine of the cross, according to this view of things, was so far from being a display of the divine glory that it must have been a most shocking exhibition of injustice.”

And again: “Such views of the atonement excite an irreverent familiarity with God, and in some cases a daring boldness in approaching him; yet such is the strength of the antinomian delusion that it passes for intimate communion with him.”

This “antinomian delusion” has, in all ages, by the godly and eminently pious, been considered a most dangerous heresy. It has been opposed by all true reformers. Thus I copy from a work recently read:—

“The Methodist Conference under Wesley, in 1770, declared that the universal immorality then prevailing was because of the widespread opinion that Christ had annulled the moral law, and that evangelical freedom dispensed with the ten commandments.”

Wesley’s notes on this subject were attacked by certain dignitaries of the established church, which gave rise to “Fletcher’s Checks to Antinomianism,” a work worthy of the perusal of every Bible student.

Andrew Fuller, the celebrated Baptist author, in his remarks on the Atonement and Justification, said:—

“If the doctrine of atonement leads us to entertain degrading notions of the law of God, or to plead an exemption from its preceptive authority, we may be sure it is not the Scripture doctrine of reconciliation. Atonement has respect to justice, and justice to the law, or the revealed will of the sovereign, which has been violated, and the very design of the atonement is to repair the honor of the law. If the law which has been transgressed were unjust, instead of an atonement being required for the breach of it, it ought to have been repealed, and the lawgiver have taken upon himself the disgrace of having enacted it. Every instance of punishment among men is a sort of atonement to the justice of the country, the design of which is to restore the authority of good government, which transgression has impaired. But if the law itself is bad, or the penalty too severe, every sacrifice made to it must be an instance of cruelty; and should a prince of the blood royal, in compassion to the offenders, offer to suffer in their stead, for the purpose of atonement, whatever love it might discover on his part, it were still greater cruelty to accept the offer, even though he might survive his sufferings. The public voice would be, There is no need of any atonement; it will do no honor, but dishonor, to the legislature; and to call the liberation of the convicts an act of grace, is to add insult to injury. The law ought not to have been enacted, and now it is enacted, ought immediately to be repealed. It is easy to see from hence, that in proportion as the law is depreciated the gospel is undermined, and both grace and atonement rendered void. It is the law as abused, or as turned into a way of life in opposition to the gospel, for which it was never given to a fallen creature, that the sacred Scriptures depreciate it; and not as the revealed will of God, the immutable standard of right and wrong. In this view the apostle delighted in it; and if we are Christians we shall delight in it, too; and shall not object to be under it as a rule of duty, for no man objects to be governed by laws which he loves.”

How evident it appears that antinomianism is opposed to the Scriptures and to all just reasoning. And how easy to perceive that a disparagement of the ten commandments leads to laxity of the morality enforced by those commandments. When the Lord gave that law, he said they would be a holy people if they obeyed it. David said it was perfect, and that he greatly loved it. Solomon said that to keep God’s commandments is the whole duty of man. The Saviour said his Father’s law was in his heart, and that worship was vain where the commandments of God are made void. Paul said the doers of the law shall be justified; that the righteousness or precept of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; that the law is spiritual, holy, just and good; and that it is not made void through faith. And we confidently appeal to all if they think it possible that vital piety and earnest zeal for the honor and the truth of God can exist where that law is reproached and disregarded, which is so highly honored and so strongly enforced in all God’s word. David prayed that his eyes might be opened to behold wondrous things out of the law of God. Too many now shut their eyes against all its wonders and glory, and their hearts against its holy claims. Paul said the law was his delight; but these delight to revile the law and cast reproach upon it.

On which side would you, dear reader, wish to be found in that day when “God shall bring every work into judgment,” when every man shall be rewarded according to his works; when the angel shall announce, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”? If we are to be judged by the law, how important that we come in harmony with it before that day of terror comes! As we stand related to it in probation, so shall we be related to it in the judgment. Now we can prepare ourselves for his service, and turn away from sin to obedience; then mercy will be denied to all the unreconciled.

“Strong delusions” are increasing. The form of godliness without the power is prevailing. Iniquity abounds, and the love of many waxes cold. There is only one way to be shielded from the influence of evil and error, and that is to seek the enlightening, guiding, and sanctifying influence of God’s Spirit, and, through faith in Christ, walk in obedience to the revealed will of God.