CHRIST A SABBATH REFORMER.
By F. M. W.
The professed people of God in the days of Judah and Jerusalem passed through some varied and trying experiences. With the history of the Lord’s mighty dealings before them in bringing them out of the land of their captivity, and in spite of the wonderful deliverances wrought for them, they forgot the Source of their strength and turned to the worship of heathen idols and deities. Had they obeyed the Lord, He would have made them a beacon-light to all the nations of the world. It evidently was His purpose forever to send forth from Jerusalem His law, and make it the center of the world’s evangelization. He says through His prophet that if His professed people had obeyed His voice, and refrained from polluting His Sabbath, the city would have stood forever. Jer. 17:24, 25. But He further threatened that if this was not done, He would destroy the city of David and carry away the people into captivity. The people forgot the Lord, and the wo pronounced was poured out. The city was besieged and laid waste. The wretched inhabitants were carried into bondage. It seems that in the captivity and in the eventful years following they learned some severe though imperfect lessons. It is natural for the mind of man, if not balanced by sanctified judgment, to go to extremes. And the man who takes one extreme to-day will quite likely be found advocating the opposite extreme to-morrow. Thus it was with the Jewish nation. From the laxity and looseness pervading their observance of the Lord’s Sabbath under the life of their own government, they had swung in the days of Christ clear around to the other extreme, and had surrounded the Sabbath with such exacting requirements and superstitious mummery and self-righteous regard as to wrest it from the place appointed of God quite as much as when they pursued the opposite course. In the observance of the Jewish ritual, the Lord’s day had ceased to be a day of delight. Its requirements were burdensome and exacting. Christ, the world’s Teacher, began His work. His efforts for reform were thorough and far-reaching. He finds the day made and set apart by His own divine hand at the creation of the world torn from its holy setting, and instead of fulfilling its holy purpose of lightening the burdens of men and bringing them joy and blessing, proving a curse in making the service of God distasteful and oppressive. Regardless of the opposition He would encounter from the rabbis, He does not hesitate to reform the practise of the people regarding Sabbath observance. By precept and example, by acts of charity and mercy, He proves that the Sabbath was designed as a boon to the human family, a day in which mankind should seek good and do good, a day for unloosing the bands of sin, undoing the heavy burdens, and letting the oppressed go free. The lame man, by the exercise of His power on the Sabbath day, was enabled to take up his bed and walk. The man with a withered hand on that same day felt new life and vigor coursing through the fibers of his disabled member. The Jewish teachers stood aghast. In their misconception of the requirements of the law of God, they thought this course of action on the part of the Saviour was a violation of the divine precepts, and that it was a stroke made against God’s sovereignty and authority. But the Saviour refutes this teaching. He shows them that the law of humanity implanted in their natures would lead them to loose an ox and lead it away to water, or to lift a sheep from the pit where it had fallen. And if the law of nature would lead them to do this, how much more would the demands of this same law lead them to go to the succor and relief of those made in the image of their Maker. And in conclusion He adds, “Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days.” See Matt. 12:1–12. Thus did He, the same as they, recognize the existence of the law of God in all of its binding obligation, and taught that His observance of the Sabbath day, in making it a day of blessing, was in keeping with the truest and highest requirements of that law. Even previous to this conflict with the Jewish teachers, in the memorable sermon given on the mount, Christ had declared emphatically the relation of His mission to the law of God, divining doubtless that there were in the multitude assembled on that occasion those who thought that His attack on Jewish customs and prejudices was antagonistic to the divine requirements. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matt. 5:17, 18. Thus Jesus Christ, the world’s Creator and Redeemer, the man who spake as no other man spake, before nor since, the Teacher of all divine truth, recognized the existence of the divine law, and the existence of the Sabbath commandment as a part of that law, and gave His own example and practise as a model of true and proper Sabbath observance. Before closing this paper we can not forbear contrasting the methods of Christ in His work of Sabbath reform with the methods of so-called Sabbath reformers of the present day. Christ sought no political alliances, invoked no aid of sword or spear, but depended alone on the4 (452)power of the Spirit of God to send the arrows of truth home to the hearts of the listeners. He enjoined the observance of the one true Sabbath made by Himself at creation, the token of His sanctifying work, as the day above all others to be a delight, a joy, and a blessing to the children of men. In the work of false sabbath reform to-day the methods of Christ have been revised. The arm of the civil power is invoked. The power of the civil law is called into requisition. The policy is to compel men to do what the Spirit of God does not prompt, nor their desires lead them to perform. And instead of the one true Sabbath being held out to men as a sign of Christ in creation and redemption, a false sabbath, a usurper and counterfeit, is urged upon men’s regard, and too often backed up by civil requirement. Which is the true Sabbath, the one enjoined by Christ, or the one commanded by men? And which are the better methods, those employed by the great Teacher, or those prompted by worldly policy and political measures? “What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.” F. M. W.