“SATURDAY-KEEPERS” AND THE “LAW OF LIBERTY.”
By W. N. Glenn
A LITTLE tract, recently received, asks “Saturday-keepers” several questions, among which is a request for “one text proving that man under the Gospel will be judged by any other law than that of James 2:12.” In the first place, those who keep the Sabbath “according to the commandment” do not keep “Saturday.” The Sabbath of the Lord is the seventh day of the week according to God’s reckoning of time. “The evening and the morning were the first day,” the second day, and so on. See Genesis 1. All through the Bible this mode of reckoning the day is recognized. “From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath.” Saturday, as all the days at the present time, is reckoned from midnight to midnight; therefore Saturday can not be the Sabbath of the Lord. The Sabbath, or true seventh day of the week, must begin at sunset of the time now called Friday, and close at sunset of the period called Saturday. The bringing into the Christian church of the change of the days from God’s order, and the naming of them after heathen deities, was the work of that power spoken of in Dan. 7:25, of which the prophet said it should “think to change times and laws.” And the so-called change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week was the work of the same power. But as to the request for “one text proving that man under the Gospel will be judged by any other law than that of James 2:12,” we have only to say that we know of no such text. We know that men will be judged by the law referred to by James. He says, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” The one who threw out the challenge before quoted evidently is, like many others, laboring under the delusion that the “law of liberty” is not the Decalogue. But if he would read the verses immediately preceding the one cited, he would see that the reference is to the Decalogue, and can be to no other law. James says:— “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well; but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.”
Now we who observe the seventh-day Sabbath, “Saturday-keepers,” as the aforesaid critic is pleased to term us, are not anxious to find any other law than the “law of liberty” by which to be judged. There could be no other just law, and the Lord could not give any other than a just law; for he is a just God. Moreover, the Decalogue, as shown above, is the law of liberty,—perfect (Ps. 19:7), holy, just, and good (Rom. 7:12). It was by Christ’s perfect obedience to that law that he was able to give us liberty—not liberty from the obligation, which rests upon all, to keep the law, but liberty from the curse brought upon all through failure to keep it. It is by his obedience (righteousness) that he is able to help those who have faith in him to walk in his steps. He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:6. “The truth shall make you free.” Chap. 8:32. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Verse 36. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Gal. 5:1. Let us see if we find what that means. Paul tells us that “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Rom. 15:4), so we are safe in turning for information to what was written aforetime. Christ, who is in all things the word of God, accompanied the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the promised land. See Ex. 14:19; 28:20–23; 33:14; 1 Cor. 10:4, 9. Now turn to Exodus 20: “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” And immediately following is rehearsed the law of God, which had become well-nigh obliterated from their minds in their long, dark Egyptian bondage. They were delivered from Egyptian servitude that they might have liberty to serve God; in other words, that they might enjoy the freedom vouchsafed by the “law of liberty.” The deliverance from Egyptian bondage was a type of the deliverance from sin (the “transgression of the law,” 1 John 3:4). To deliver one from the transgression of the law is to place him in harmony with the law. To deliver one from the curse of the law is to place him under the blessings of the law. To deliver one from the bondage of sin is to endow him with the liberty of righteousness. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1), and “great peace have they which love thy law” (Ps. 119:165).