Jewish by W. N. Glenn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 20, 1883

“Jewish.”

By W. N. Glenn

“There is a disposition among professing Christians to sneer at anything that they believe to be “Jewish,” or to have come to us from the Jews. This disposition is particularly manifested toward the moral law, and more especially toward the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, which it is claimed was given to the Jews for the Jews. The term Jew was originally applied to the people of Judah, or of the kingdom of Judah, but was afterward given a wider application, and as far back as the days of the apostles it comprehended all of literal Israel. It is now generally so understood. That “old Jewish law”—that “old Jewish Sabbath,” are common expressions among antinomians and emphatic Sunday advocates.

To condemn anything because it is “Jewish,” is a very unsafe position for a Christian to assume. We need not stop here to show that the Sabbath was inaugurated at the close of creation, and therefore not Jewish; nor that the principles of the moral law were in force from Adam to Noah, and therefore not Jewish; but we will admit for the present purpose that they are Jewish, because they were given to the Jews in the most solemn manner; and if that were the original enactment, the law would lose none of its force or importance. Were the Lord to speak a new law to his people to-day, it would be none the less binding because it had not previously existed. Admitting, then, that the moral law and the seventh-day Sabbath institution are Jewish, we repeat that it is unsafe to condemn anything for no other reason than because it is Jewish.

What position do Gentile Christians occupy in the church of God? They are merely graftings. Rom. 11:17. “Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.” Verse 18. Throw away all that is Jewish in the Christian religion, and what is left? The Old Testament—with its history, its instruction, its poetry, and its prophecies—is Jewish; there was not a line of it written till the days of Moses. The Saviour was a Jew; the twelve apostles were Jews, and the whole of the New Testament was written by Jews. In short, “salvation is of the Jews.” So says the Saviour himself. John 4:22.

And the New Jerusalem will be a Jewish city,—its twelve gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel (Rev. 21:12), and its twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Verse 14). And the “old Jewish Sabbath” will be observed there: “And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 66:23. In Isaiah’s time no weekly Sabbath was known but the seventh day. It was then, as in Moses’ day, the Christian Sabbath. Moses was a Christian, “esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.” Heb. 11:26. And the people were Christians, “for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed [marg. went with] them, and that Rock was Christ.” 1 Cor. 10:4. To make the identity more striking, it is said that some of them tempted him (verse 9); and finally, at his advent but comparatively few of them were ready to receive him.

Had this Sabbath not been polluted by the Jews, their city would not have been destroyed. And here is a warning that all modern “Israelites” (grafted) would do well to heed. “Now these things [as with all judgments upon them for violations of the law] were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.” “And they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.” Shall any mere grafting say, “I don’t want anything that is Jewish?” “Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.” W. N. Glenn.