DISCUSSION ON THE SABBATH QUESTION
By Peter Vogel
BETWEEN ELD. J. H. WAGGONER, S. D. ADVENTIST, AND ELD. PETER VOGEL, DISCIPLE. “Do the Scriptures teach that the seventh-day Sabbath is to be observed by Christians throughout the gospel dispensation?” ELD. WAGGONER affirms; ELD. VOGEL denies. ELD. VOGEL’S EIGHTH NEGATIVE.
We have now seen all that Eld. W. has opportunity to offer on this proposition. Though I still have much negative matter on hand, the rules of discussion preclude my presenting anything further. I proceed, therefore, to review the last affirmative, and to present a brief summary. And first I wish to protest against Eld. W.’s summing up this proposition at the close of the next. The final words on this question belong to me. The first two propositions were so related that his being on the negative of the second, gave him opportunity to really close both, and he will also rightfully have the last word on the next proposition. I claim the privilege of closing this one; nor shall he deprive me of this right. It usually requires more space to answer an argument than to make it, and yet I have occupied less space than he. On the first two propositions, we are about even, he having forty lines more than I. His first affirmative of this proposition contain between seventy-five and eighty lines more than my replies, and the prints will show that my seventh article is but little longer than his, while his last contains about one-fifth more matter than it should. I do not say this complainingly, I only wish to show that he, rather than I, has the advantage in point of length. I shall not drag this proposition into the next, but shall claim the right to review his summary, in the event that he carries out his expressed intention. In Rom. 7, and the last half of chap. 6, Paul has special reference to Jews and their relation to the law. This “every reader knows” who attends to such expressions as, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace”—“ye are become dead to the law”—“delivered from the law”—“married to another.” I did not say that any one was “joined to Christ by his crucifixion,” but that by this all who were “under the law”—all Jews, whether converted to Christianity, or still “children of wrath”—were “delivered from the law.” This removes every difficulty presented. My analysis of Rom. 7, showing that it does not describe conversion, but Paul’s perversion, or the struggle in committing his first sin, is unassailed and unassailable. A careful examination of my argument will show that my “just distinction,” with reference to the use of “carnal,” was also justly used. A reference to Ps. 14 and 53, will show that the quotation of Rom. 3:10–19, refers only to the Jews, or, as Paul says, “to them that are under the law.” “What advantage then [own, therefore, in view of the preceding considerations] hath the Jews” over the Gentile (Rom. 3:1)? explains itself, and does not give Eld. W. any aid on what follows. A distinction “between moral and circumstantial duties” will not set aside the principle illustrated by the Reading will case, since I have proved (3d affirmative, 2d prop.) from Lev. 19:35–37; Deut. 28; Gal. 3:19; and Rom. 5:20, that moral principles were given, in the law, to the Jews, as if they were not moral, but positive; or, if my brother prefers the word, as “circumstantial duties.” I fail to see that Eld. W. has extricated Jacob and Jonah from the condition in which I showed them to be. Nor have his notes of exclamation any potency to show that a given government is unsuited to the present manhood of our race, simply because it was not adapted to the patriarchal infancy, and the Jewish childhood, when “the Holy Spirit was not yet given” (John 7:39) to guide and teach men (1 John 2:27). As well say, because a man from a dark mine cannot at once bear the full light of the sun, or a lame man walk without crutches, that, therefore, they never can. For his special benefit, I must recommend to my brother’s perusal the quotations from Jews’ Letters to Voltaire, and request him, also, to reconsider whether I was not always consistent with myself. I might add, in his own courteous words, “He knew it,” but I will spare him the pain, and simply ask, What has he done with my arguments on this point? Where is his reply? Behold, too, how he strains my statement that he “is constrained to admit that the old covenant is abolished.” Could I have referred to my “logic,” when I had not yet written a line on that topic? Or, has he forgotten the position which at least some of his brethren used to occupy? Verily, somebody is talking “for effect.” As proof that the ten commandments are not the first, or old, covenant, the word concerning, in Ex. 24:8, was caused to be printed in italics; but now, having so completely turned it against him that he has not a word in reply, his position is still the same! I gave reasons why the word “covenant,” in 2 Kings 23:3, is used in the sense of “vow,” but to this we have no reply, save a requotation of the passage. Wonderful proof! When I said that Deut. 5:5, cannot refer to Ex. 19, I, of course, referred to verses 2, 3, in reply to his statement that “the parenthetical words of verse 5 refer to verses 2, 3, the covenant made with Israel, but not to verse 4 and onward, for the covenant commanded was given by God himself, without the agency of Moses.” He now abandons this, and quotes from Ex. 19:16, &c., saying, “These are the very things to which Deut. 5:5, does refer!” This not only amounts to the same as my reference to Ex. 20:19, but is a turning over to my position, since “verse 4 and onward” pertains, he says, to “the covenant commanded.” We are making fine progress. “He which persecuted us in times past, now preacheth the faith which he once destroyed.” I recognize the Bible as inspired; but to construe a figurative expression literally, or to interpret statements in prose so as to swell them up to the fervor of poetic diction, severely rendered, is neither Scripture nor inspiration. 1 Chron. 16 is poetry, in Hebrew; verses 8–22, contain the first fifteen verses of Ps. 105; and verses 23–33, the whole of the 96th Psalm, with some slight variations. Let the reader also examine the use of “thousand,” in the following passages: Job 33:23; Ps. 91:7; Isa. 30:17. I question whether “everlasting, and forever, may be so limited as to be less than one generation.” At least, Ex. 21:6, is very doubtful; it enslaves not only one man for life, but also all the generations which issue from him. But did my brother think of what he now says, when he quoted Ps. 119:142, as applying to the ten commandments, and argued that “everlasting” excluded all “limitation?” In his own style, “What a difference it makes when a fact is for him, or against him!” Matt. 19:21, does prove the ten commandments imperfect. When the young man said, “All these things have I kept from my youth up,” the Saviour, “who knew what was in man,” “beholding him, loved him.” It was not “covetousness,” according to the law, to have and desire to retain “large possessions.” James does not call the ten commandments “the law of liberty,” for the latter is “perfect” (chap. 1:25), whereas the former, as we have seen, is not. Nor does he assert anything contrary to this in chap. 2. Verse 12 is a continuation of the theme discussed up to verse 10, the intervening verse being but an illustration, which might have been drawn from any source, sacred, or secular. Figures of speech, intelligently used, have real meanings. And “build” in the declaration, “On this rock will I build my church,” cannot be deprived of the sense of resting or depending on, as on a foundation. Hence we do find here the constitution of the Christian church. Any position can be made to appear absurd, by a licentious use of illustrations. The “crooked stick,” and “obtuse angle,” as applied to my “notions of law and character,” are wholly inappropriate. Compare the law to a Flemish ell (twenty-seven inches), and the gospel to a French ell (fifty-four inches), and my position is more fairly represented. Suppose seven ells to be perfection, under either dispensation: is Jewish perfection then equal to that of the gospel? Eld. W. failed to grasp my point respecting those passages in Revelation. He argued that the ten commandments are literally meant, in Rev. 11:19, by “the ark of his testament;” I replied, No more literally than “the temple of God,” denotes the Jewish temple. It is true that there were two vails in the tabernacle, or temple, but one of these (the second) was pre-eminently “the vail;” comp. Matt. 27:51, and all parallel passages; and within this vail Jesus entered (Heb. 6:19). This follows, further, from the fact developed that the first holies has its antitype on earth, in the church of Christ. Nor is there anything militating against this in Heb. 8. “The heavens,” of verse 1, and “heavenly,” of verse 5, are not equivalents; they are from different words in the original; the first is descriptive of place, the other, not; the latter word occurs in such passages as Eph. 1:3; 2:6—“hath made us [the members of the church] sit together in heavenly places.” Even the same word has often different meanings in the same sentence. Ex. 24:12, that “important proof-text,” is up again. How simply my brother acts over “simply.” I said that “I know of no instance where the ten commandments are called ‘the law,’ simply.” Can there be any doubt as to my meaning? Did I not say, in the same paragraph, “The expression, ‘the law,’ when referring to the old dispensation, and not qualified to the contrary, . . . always refers to the entire body of the law as a whole, or to single commandments as part of the whole”? Is not “law” qualified, in Ex. 24:12, by “which I have written”? This qualification makes it definite, and it may and does take the article on that account. I quote Keil again: “Definite, as being made so by some accompanying descriptive words; (as) the blue-eyed damsel; the winds of autumn; the man who is upright.” Are not “which I have written,” “descriptive words”? There is a contrast (implied) between that written by God, and that not written by him, as there is one between an upright man, and one not upright, and between autumnal winds, and winds not autumnal. With a rule so directly to the point, I covet the reader’s verdict. The “handwriting” of Col. 2:14, can only mean the ten commandments; for (1) nowhere, in all the Bible, is the rest of the law ever called a handwriting, whereas, the hand which wrote it is a common descriptive of the decalogue. (2) Let the reader consult the connection, observing that “his cross” reads “the cross,” in Greek, and he will find himself unable to make any fair disposition of it other than I have done. (3) So far from retaining the rest of the law, this is the grandest stroke for its abolition, since, with the removal of the foundation, the house must fall. I have also shown that the Greek for “blotting out,” is opposed to “recording,” and may apply, with the fullest appropriateness, as I apply it. I am asked, For whose benefit were such precepts as forbid killing, stealing, and adultery, taken away? In whose way were they? I am accompanied with some unworthy insinuations concerning myself. To me, such proceedings seem highly culpable, for no one knows better than my opponent, that I claim no abolition in the sense he attributes to me. Have I not repeated, again and again, that I cling to every iota of morality in the law? Did I not prove that the ten commandments were given to the Jews as if they were merely positive commandments, and that only to this extent were they abolished? that they were given to them, in a large measure, as a political constitution, and that as such they were abrogated? It may be true that, in after ages, the Jews saw that a moral basis underlay nearly all of them—and some of their leaders may even have so spoken of them—yet this neither alters the fact of their having been given as positive, nor that to this extent their abolition was a necessity; it only increases the need of abrogation. Is not such a view of the case more than implied in my third affirmative of the second proposition? I do not, then, wish to change “the nature of the precepts of Jehovah,” but only to remove them from the unnatural position in which God was compelled, for a time, to place them, by reason of man’s incapacity. Nor have I “renounced the premise,” but merely admitted that one supposed way of showing its existence, has no bearing on the question. Had I even renounced the premise, my good brother would have given it to me again in his change of base respecting the reference of Deut. 5:5, to Ex. 19. How kind! I will requite this good deed by allowing him to have the coveted last word on the Hebrew, knowing that what I have already said on the matter involved is all-sufficient, and hasten to the more necessary work of a I. Eld. W. sought to maintain his affirmation under the three following divisions:— 1. “That the Lord claims a day in this dispensation.” Here we are happily agreed. In so far as he tried to identify this day with the Sabbath, by making Jesus Lord of it in a higher sense than man is, I so fully met him that he had no reply (1st Neg.). I pledged myself to identify this day with the first day of the week, on the next proposition. 2. “That the Sabbath is recognized and familiarly spoken of in the New Testament, without such explanations as would be necessary to guard against misapprehension, if it were abolished.” To this I replied (1) That all the mentioned instances of observing the Sabbath would be expected on the supposition of its abolition; and (2) That the explanation is given that these things were done to conciliate Jewish prejudice. See Acts 21:20–25; 1 Cor. 9:20. (3) Circumcision, animal sacrifices, the annual sabbaths, &c., all of which are confessedly abolished, were attended to by Christians as well as the Sabbaths. (4) The Sabbath is expressly said to be abolished (Col. 2:16, 17); and (5) The Gentiles are, in particular, forbidden to observe all Jewish days. Gal. 4:10, 11. 3. “That the law of which the Sabbath commandment is a part, was not abolished, but is now binding on all mankind.” To this I opposed its exact counterpart, viz., that Christ “abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of the commandments, in [their] ordinances.” Eph. 2:15. Here the discussion virtually ended. Nevertheless, every step in the development of his argument was patiently met, and refuted to my entire satisfaction, and I trust, also, to that of all unprejudiced readers. And here I must add THE VERDICT OF ELD. W.’S OWN BRETHREN.
These articles appear simultaneously in the Gospel Echo and Christian, my paper, and the Advent Review, Eld. W.’s paper, and of which he is one of the editors. Concerning the conduct of these papers he wrote to me in a letter dated June 5, 1873, as follows: “I would ask that the editors and correspondents of both papers shall not interfere, but leave the points broached by us entirely to us during the discussion.” The Christian has strictly observed this just request, referring all querists to the discussion, while the Review has not only seldom issued a number without at least one article touching the propositions between us, and sometimes two or three, but has, in violation of the agreement, even taken hold of the very points in hand. The issue of April 8, 1873, for example, has an article on “The Vail of the Sanctuary,” by the resident editor, and one on 2 Cor. 3, by one of its most prominent correspondents—both being “points broached by us.” And in this week’s issue, April 15, 1873, the same correspondent takes up my various references to Galatians, with a promise to consider also Heb. 8. I have a right to speak of these matters here, because these articles appeared since my 7th Negative was sent to the printers. What does this mean? Were Eld. W.’s brethren satisfied with his effort and conscious of victory, would they act thus? Not only this procedure, but also the fact that different views from Eld. W.’s are taken on a number of passages, declare unmistakably what this means. It is a verdict in my favor. Proceeding with my summary, I would remark that, according to the rules of discussion, it is amply sufficient for the establishment of a negative to meet the affirmative arguments. I have, however, the following negative arguments:— II. The ten commandments, together with the rest of the Mosaic laws, form but one law. 1. The same names are indifferently applied to either portion, both being called “the law of the Lord” and “the law of Moses.” (See 2d Neg.) To this there was no reply. The Sabbath being wholly a positive institution, whether originated at the giving of the law or pre-existent, was on that account abolished with such other positive institutions as pre-existent circumcision and the co-etaneous annual sabbaths. III. I next made my arguments more specific by singling out the ten commandments. I showed that they stood to the Jews in such a special relation as is inconsistent with the genius of the present dispensation; that they were abolished as to this particular relation; and that this abolition involved the total destruction of the Sabbath. See end of 4th and beginning of 5th Neg. Let me name four points:— 1. The ten commandments, as given to the Jews, are pronounced imperfect by the Saviour in Matt. 19:21, and Mark 10:21 (see 5th Neg.). When they are called perfect, the term is used only in a relative sense (see 4th Neg.). 2. The “first,” or “old,” covenant is conceded to be abolished; and that the ten commandments are this covenant, I showed from Ex. 24:8 (6th Neg.), and Heb. 8 (7th Neg.); to which I might add my brother’s concession on the reference of Deut. 5:5. 3. I showed that the ten commandments are expressly called the covenant which the Lord made with the children of Israel when he took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt (1 Kings 8:9, 21), and that the covenant so described is done away (Jer. 31:31–34; Heb. 8:6–13). (See 4th Neg.). To this no reply was attempted. 4. According to Eld. W., Matt. 5:17, refers exclusively to the decalogue. To his argument thence derived, I replied by showing that it teaches abolition in the strongest terms (3d Neg.). And so complete was my success that he attempted no rejoinder. IV. At the close of my first negative, I made nine arguments in proof of the Sabbath’s being a positive institution, and added two more in the paragraph marked I, at the end of the 7th negative. To none of these has a reply been made, though Eld. W. is aware that this is fatal to his position. For, 1. The abolition of the law consists in abolishing only that, and all that, which is positive; and 2. It requires express legislation to transfer a positive institution from one dispensation to another, and there is no such legislation respecting the Sabbath under this dispensation. V. Narrowing the compass of the discussion still more, I produced arguments wherein the Sabbath is expressly named as abolished, three of which will suffice for this summary:— 1. In Col. 2:16, 17, the Sabbath is expressly named as abolished: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day [heortee, the Jewish festivals, including the yearly sabbaths], or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” 2. I argued from the fact that building fire in dwellings on ordinary occasions was prohibited, that the Sabbath bears the unmistakable impress of a local and temporary institution. Here I was somewhat disappointed by Eld. W.’s silence; for I was anxious to expose the only answer ever attempted. 3. Mark testifies that the Sabbath belongs to the class of things that were “made” (2:27), and Paul declares, Heb. 12:27, that the “things that are made” are “removed.” To this, also, we have had no reply, and, no doubt, for the obvious reason that none is possible.