A SAMPLE ARGUMENT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 28.

A SAMPLE ARGUMENT.

SOME one has sent us a pamphlet on “The Number Seven,” which comes to the conclusion that “the first day of the week has been the Sabbath for God’s people ever since the day of Pentecost.” Here is one of the arguments on Matt. 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil”:—

“It is thought that because the command to ‘remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,’ stands in, and is a part of, the Decalogue, it therefore ought to be observed by Christians, but as this was one of the items of the law, and as our Lord came to fulfil the law, and as Jesus did all He came to do, it therefore follows that it was fulfilled, with the other types and shadows; and if fulfilled, it can not be regarded as being in force over any people.”

Then, if no longer in force, that law was destroyed, a thing Jesus says He came not to do. Again, an argument which proves too much proves nothing. If the Sabbath was so fulfilled as “not to be regarded as being in force,” this would be true of every part of the law. And, therefore, “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” according to this writer’s logic, “can not be regarded as being in force over any people.”

All this perversion of Scripture and logic might have been saved to the author if he had but discerned (1) that the Decalogue is not a law of types and shadows, and (2) that to fulfil a law is to do the law, fill up by perfect obedience its every requirement. This Jesus did as respects the Decalogue fifty-two weeks a year for thirty-three and one-half years. But He obeyed that we might obey. See Titus 2:14; Matt. 19:17.

Here is another thought which shows the absurdity of such argument, which, by the way, is not original with the above. He says that the Decalogue “was superseded by the law of Christ.” Well, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” Gal. 6:2. This means, according to this man’s reasoning, that the “law of Christ,” as soon as obeyed, “can not be regarded as being in force over any people.” If the writer of “The Number Seven” had studied God’s Word to a better purpose, he would have found the Decalogue to be Christ’s law, and the seventh-day Sabbath, the only weekly Sabbath of the Bible, to be filled with Christ, the seal of His creatorship, the sign of His power to redeem.