Did the Lord Stultify Himself?
By William Covert
THE Lord directed the prophet Jeremiah to inform the children of Israel that if they would observe the Sabbath in a proper manner the city of Jerusalem should stand forever. This is equal to a declaration that the Sabbath would be obligatory upon them forever. But we are told that the Sabbath was only to be binding up to the cross of Christ. Now one of two things is evident: Either God's promises and covenants have entangled him in his purposes, or else these persons are mistaken in regard to the abolition of the Sabbath commandment. That the above statements are correct the following scripture will show. "If ye diligently hearken to me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath-day, but hallow the Sabbath-day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of the city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David . . . and this city shall remain forever." Jer. 17:24, 25. We will consider the subject in the light of the promise in this text. If Israel had obeyed the commandments, could the city have been destroyed? No. And why not? Because its inhabitants would have been loyal to God's laws. But did their violation of these laws release them from obligation to obey them? If so, then the thief is released from any obligation to the commandment that says: "Thou shalt not steal;" or from liability to arrest when he violates it. Had Israel continued in obedience to the Sabbath then the obligation to obey it would have continued upon them. Yet Christ would have come as a Saviour, and given himself as a sacrifice for man's sins, even if Israel had accepted the proposals that the Lord made them in regard to Jerusalem. For God had already promised them through the prophet Isaiah that Christ should take the government upon his shoulders, &c. Isa. 9:6, 7. And that he should bear our sins, and make his soul an offering for sin, and make intercession for transgressors. Isa. 53:1-12. Thus the promises of the gospel were given to Israel more than a hundred years before the conditional promise was made concerning Jerusalem. So we gather from the prophetic promises that the offering and mediation of Christ was a surety at the time that a promise was made to Israel, contingent upon their observance of the Sabbath, which if they had done would have secured them a national existence throughout the Christian dispensation—and all this for the keeping of the commandments which we are told are abolished because Christ has come in fulfillment of the above-mentioned promises. If it be true that the establishment of the Christian dispensation abrogates the Sabbath commandment, then it follows that if Israel had obeyed it as the Lord commanded and pleaded with them to do, the time would have come that they would have been released from obligation to observe it because it was abolished; and yet they would in that case not have dared to transgress it because of the threatenings in God's word against them in case they should cease to observe it. Would an infinite God stultify his own purposes by making conditional promises that might counteract his own will and word? Impossible.