p. 583 | WHY NOT ALL OF IT?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 10, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 37.

WHY NOT ALL OF IT?

A CONTEMPORARY quotes the fourth commandment in bold-faced type, and says:—

Many would accept all the decalogue but this, tho honesty would seem to forbid such distortion. If the rest are binding, why not this one?

And surely this would seem to be the logic of the thing. But our contemporary continues:—

. . . In Deut. 5:15 we read that God had the Israelites keep the day in memory of their Exodus. In Ex. 31:17 it is said to be the “token of the covenant.” Neither of these reasons apply to Gentiles, to say the least. The commandments and old covenants were to and with Israelites only, Gentiles have no part nor lot in them. Rom. 2:14 (R.V.); 9:4; Eph. 2:12, etc.

The Sabbath is first of all a memorial of God's creative power and goodness (Ex. 20:8-11), and, secondly, the sign of His power to recreate, or sanctify, inasmuch as it takes recreative power to save, sanctify, and regenerate (Read Eze. 20:12, 20; Ex. 31:13; Eph. 2:10). Therefore when God made Himself known by His creative power in the furnishing of the manna, and by the greatest manifestation of creative power since the earth came from His hand witnessed in the redemption of His people (Exodus 16; Deut. 4:32-39), thus revealing Himself, as Creator and Redeemer, “making Himself a glorious name” (Isa. 63:7-14), it was supremely fitting that He should there also make known His Sabbath as the memorial of creation (Ex. 20:8-11) and the sign of redemption and sanctification (Eze. 20:12; Ex. 31:13; Deut. 5:12-15). It was God's weekly, constant pledge of His everlasting covenant to redeem. Ex. 31:17.

It is true that these promises of the covenant do not apply to the Gentiles as Gentiles; for as Gentiles they are “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Eph. 2:12. That is the condition of every soul by nature—Jew or Gentile. The Gentile's only hope is to accept the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and by faith take hold of God's covenant and keep His Sabbath. That was true anciently (Isa. 56:1-7), and it is true to-day (Eph. 2:13, 19, 20; Rev. 14:12). So the Gentiles that have “no part nor lot” with God's covenants are without God, and without hope. We earnestly pray that our brother editor and those who follow him may see the preciousness of being among the true Israel of God. This editor continues:—

. . . Violation of this command was punishable by the death of the culprit, and that only. Ex. 31:14, 15. To do any work of any sort on the seventh day necessitated the death of the worker. See Ex. 35:2, 3, and Num. 15:32, 33, as examples.

So also the violation of the commandments prohibiting idolatry was punishable with death (Deut. 13:1-9); the transgression of the seventh commandment; of the third, of the fifth, was punishable by death (Ex. 21:15-17; Lev. 24:11-16; 20:4, 10-12). Will our anti-Sabbath brethren refuse to keep these because their infraction for sin's sake was punishable with death? No work for God, work of mercy or necessity, on the Sabbath day was forbidden. The priests did double regular work on that day (Num. 28:9, 10), and Jesus showed that providing for the necessities of men, and doing good for the sake of the Lord, was lawful, according to the Sabbath law. Matt. 12:1-12.

And here is our contemporary's view of the object of Christ's redemption:—

I do praise God that Jesus fulfilled this law, and is its end, unto righteousness, to all who believe (Rom. 10:4); that love is the fulfilling of all law (Rom. 13:10); that we are not called to the bondage of law, but unto perfect liberty (Gal. 5:13). Then there is no commandment to keep any day for the Gentiles?—No, praise God; nor for any who are under the blood of Jesus.

So according to this logic Christians are not expected to keep the first, or third, or fifth, or seventh, or ninth, or tenth, or any other precept of the Decalogue! That is, the Christian may worship idols, take the name of the Lord in vain, dishonor father and mother, commit adultery, bear false witness, and covet! This is the logic of his argument; for this editor himself says that “if the rest [of the precepts of the Decalogue] are binding, why not this one [the fourth]?” Therefore if this, the Sabbath precept, is not binding, logic would demand that no others are. Again, he rejoices in a “liberty” that set him free from obedience to the fourth commandment (and the law is one); the same “liberty” would set him free to steal, commit adultery, and blaspheme. We praise God for the power, the life, the love, that is in Christ Jesus to set all His children free from the law of sin and death. We praise Him that He saves from sin; that He redeems “from all iniquity [lawlessness];” “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit;” that in Christ Jesus that law is a law of love; that to faith every one of His commandments is an enabling act in very deed; and that as all others His Sabbath is “a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable.”