SOME “UNANSWERABLE” PROPOSITIONS.
A DISCIPLE minister, J. N. Smith, writing in the Pacific Christian on the subject, “Ought Christians to Keep the Seventh-day Sabbath?” presents the following propositions, once offered, so he says, to his opponent in a debate, and unanswered, and made repeatedly since with the same result:— 1. If my brother will find one place where Jesus kept the Sabbath after His resurrection, I will keep it and preach it. 2. If he will find one place where Jesus commanded His disciples to keep the Sabbath, after His resurrection, I will keep it and preach it. 3. If he will find one place where the apostles, after the resurrection of Jesus, kept the Sabbath, I will keep it and preach it. 4. If he will find one place where the apostles instructed the disciples to keep the Sabbath, after the resurrection of Christ, then I will keep it and advocate it. Perhaps it would be impossible to answer these so as to satisfy Mr. Smith. The first is absurd on the face of it, yet it may be well to show how superficial they all are. 1. Jesus was on earth but forty days after His resurrection. During this time He met occasionally with His disciples, “speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” It is not said that during these forty days He kept the Sabbath. It is not said that He kept the first, the second, the third, the fifth, the sixth, or any other commandment. What would Mr. Smith think if a sinner—thief, adulterer,—whom he was pleading with to turn from his course of life, should say, “If you will find one place where Jesus did not steal or commit adultery, I will keep those commandments”? Could Mr. Smith find such a place? He would simply say that Jesus “did no sin.” 1 Peter 2:22. Therefore He did not break God’s law; for “sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. And therefore He kept the Sabbath, did this “same Jesus,” who is the same in character, “yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” Heb. 13:8. 2. The very proposition implies that He commanded the Sabbath before His resurrection; and He did. For by Him was the earth made, was the Sabbath given, was the law spoken from Sinai; for it is written, “Without Him was not anything made that was made;” and “to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him.” See John 1:1-3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16. And by His Spirit through the prophets and when on earth, He taught the absolute immutability of His Father’s law. See Isa. 51:6, 7; Ps. 111:7, 8; Matt. 5:17, 20; Luke 16:17; Matt. 19:17. “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” And among His last words to His disciples are these: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe ALL THINGS whatsoever I COMMANDED you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Matt. 28:19, 20. Here is Christ’s command; will Mr. Smith receive it and teach it? 3. Where does it say of one single apostle that he did not steal or swear or kill or commit adultery? Does Mr. Smith believe that the apostles transgressed all these commandments because the Record does not say they kept them? We certainly know that they, one and all, invariably called the seventh day by its God-given title, the Sabbath. We know that when Paul went to Athens and into the business of tent-making, he associated himself with Sabbath-keepers. We certainly know that one of the strictest customs of the Jews was the Sabbath, kept with such added Pharisaic notions as to be a burden; and the apostle Paul could say, toward the close of his ministry, “I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers.” Acts 28:17. 4. Concerning this last proposition, let us cite our witnesses:— a. Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ.— He declares that “by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20; 7:7), and that the Jews had “the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law,” of the Ten Commandments, as the next verse shows. Rom. 2:20, 21. Being “instructed out of the law,” they could approve “the things that are more excellent.” Verse 18. The seventh-day Sabbath was, therefore, a part of the form of knowledge and of the truth. The trouble with the Jews was not the form, but the spirit, the righteousness. They lacked faith, which the apostle declared established God’s law in the heart, and made it possible to fulfil in the life the unchangeable righteousness of God. Rom. 3:31; 8:4. The apostle therefore taught obedience to the whole law, and the whole included every part. b. “James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.”— He also speaks of the law. James 2:8-12. It is a “royal law,” the law of the great King. It is “according to the Scripture;” the only “Scripture” in the apostle’s day, known as such, was what we call the Old Testament. It is the law which declares, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt not kill,”—the Decalogue. It is the law which points out sin to the transgressor. It is one law, for he that offends in one point is guilty of all; he has broken the one law. And this witness concludes: “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” c. “Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ.”— He simply tells us that Jesus “did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth;” that in His righteous life of suffering, He was “leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps.” 1 Peter 2:21, 22. Jesus kept the Sabbath; Peter tells us that in this He left us “an example.” d. “The beloved Disciple.”— John tells us that “he that saith he abideth in Him [Christ Jesus] ought himself also so to walk, even as He [Christ] walked.” 1 John 2:6. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” Ch. 5:3. And of the saints in the last days he proclaims: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. God is not a man to change His holy, perfect law. The character He demands of His children is the character He Himself possesses, the one unchangeable righteousness of eternity. His law is and must be like His character. His Son, who represented Him, exemplified in the living power of His life the holy law of the Father, to teach every sin-sick soul that there was salvation from sin to righteousness. Will Mr. Smith, and all others, follow Him?