FORTY ANSWERS TO FORTY SO-CALLED OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE LAW AND SABBATH.
By D. T. Bourdeau
Texts:—“And they send unto him certain Pharisees, and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words.” Mark 12:13. “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” James 4:17. When Paul says, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law,” Rom. 3:31, we affirm that the Sabbath is not made void, but established, through faith. When Paul concludes that “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good,” Rom. 7:12, we conclude the same of the fourth commandment. When he says, “I delight in the law of God,” verse 22, we infer that he delighted to keep the Sabbath. When the beloved apostle defines sin as “the transgression of the law,” John 3:4, we scripturally and logically assert that it is sin to transgress the fourth commandment. Again, when he says, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments,” 1 John 5:3, we believe that we show our love to God by keeping the Sabbath. When, of the law that says, “Do not commit adultery” and “Do not kill,” James says, “So speak, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty,” James 2:11, 12, we infer that we shall meet the Sabbath in the Judgment. To say that Christ and the apostles were authors of a new moral law would be to represent that there are at least thirteen law-givers for this dispensation; but James says, “There is one Law-giver, who is able to save and to destroy,” James 4:12. The Scriptures represent Christ as being a mediator and advocate between God, whose law has been transgressed, and man, the transgressor of God’s law. 1 Tim. 2:5; 1 John 2:1. But if Christ be our law-giver, who is our advocate? If the law of ten commandments was abrogated at the cross, and if Christ, by quoting and teaching some of the commandments, made them a part of his law, then Christ abolished a part of his own law. Again, if the apostles, by the very act of quoting the commandments, made them a part of a new law, as some of them were quoted years after the crucifixion, it would follow that some of the commandments were not binding for years! In human affairs, a change of circumstances may make it necessary to abolish certain laws to enforce principles of justice. But no change of circumstances can affect the law of eternal justice. Human legislators may err for want of wisdom, and shamefully yield to the wicked desires of lawless subjects, in changing righteous laws. But the God of Heaven is too wise to err, and too good to be tempted by evil. OBJECTION 11. The Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day to commemorate the resurrection of Christ. ANSWER. If such a change has been effected by divine authority, we should expect to find it as clearly revealed in the Scriptures as the law enforcing the seventh day was. But the facts in the case are simply these: (1) It is not once stated in the entire Bible that God, Christ, or the apostles, ever changed the Sabbath to the first day; or, (2) that they ever blessed or sanctified that day; or, (3) that they ever commanded to observe it; or, (4) that they or the apostolic church ever kept it holy or even made it a rest-day; or, (5) that they ever called it the Sabbath, Christian Sabbath, or Lord’s day; or, (6) that they ever pronounced blessings for keeping it, or threatenings against its profanation. The first day of the week is mentioned but eight times in the New Testament. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 23:54; 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2. The eight texts mentioning that day simply call it “the first day of the week,” while three of them call the day before the first day “the Sabbath.” Six of these texts, written by four evangelists, show that Christ rose on the first day, and that on the evening of the resurrection day, when Christ appeared to the disciples as they “sat at meat,” or were eating their supper, to convince them that he was risen, “he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.” Mark 16:9–14; John 20:19. How then could they commemorate his resurrection? It was just as necessary to have it recorded that Christ rose on the first day, as it was that he was crucified the day before the Sabbath, Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 20:31, to prove his prediction true that he should rise the third day. Matt. 16:21; 20:19; 1 Cor. 15:4. One of the two remaining texts that speak of the first day, Acts 20:7–14, gives an account of a farewell meeting held at Troas during the night part of that day, verse 8, corresponding with our Saturday night; for, according to the Bible manner of reckoning time, the day commences with the evening (night), or at sunset. Gen. 1:5; Lev. 23:32; 22:6, 7; John 10:26, 27; Mark 4:32, 21. “The disciples came together to break bread, and Paul preached to them, ready to depart on the morrow.” While Paul was preaching, Luke and others were sailing a ship around a point of land from Troas to Assos. Verse 13. And, Sunday morning, Paul traveled on foot across the point of land from Troas to Assos, where they all set sail for Jerusalem. We have seen that it was the manner of Paul to hold meetings on the Sabbath; but we are not told to keep the day on which the disciples at Troas met once to break bread, improving their last opportunity of seeing and hearing Paul. This text is not only silent on the Sabbath question; but it presents the best of evidence that the first day was not observed by the apostles. The eighth and last text mentioning the first day, 1 Cor. 16:1–3, sets forth a system of finance for the support of the gospel, Rom. 15:25–28, by which each Christian at Corinth and elsewhere was to “lay by him,” or at home, Greek, etc., on the first day of the week, which Seventh-day Adventists are wont to do; and we have seen that the church at Corinth was raised by meeting with Paul and hearing him preach “every Sabbath.” Acts 18:4–11. Would God change the Sabbath and thereby originate a new and important obligation without saying one word about it? We commemorate the resurrection of Christ by the ordinance of baptism, Rom. 6:4, 5; Col. 2:12. OBJECTION 12. All the days of the week are alike. Rom. 4:5. ANSWER. Not only does this objection squarely contradict the one we have just noticed, but it militates against the Bible. Though the expression, “every day alike,” in Rom. 4:5, signifies every day that is embraced in Paul’s subject, yet it cannot comprise every day in the week; for, (1) John distinguishes one day from the rest in this dispensation, by calling it “the Lord’s day,” Rev. 1:10. (2) The fourth commandment, which is a part of the law that is to remain in force “till heaven and earth pass,” Matt. 5:18, makes a difference between the seventh day and the others of the week. (3) Christ and early Christians showed by their example that the day pointed out and enforced in the fourth commandment was not like the other days. Luke 4:16; 23:56; Acts 17:2; 16:13; 18:3, 4, 11; 13:42, 44. The expression, “every day,” in this passage, must, therefore, be limited in its meaning, as it is in “every day clothes,” and in Ex. 16:4, where God told the Israelites to gather a certain rate of manna “every day,” while on the Sabbath there was to be none; and as the expression, “all things,” is in the following texts: “One believeth that he may eat all things,” Rom. 14:2, “All things are lawful to me; but all things are not expedient,” 1 Cor. 6:12. Charity “believeth all things, hopeth all things.” 1 Cor. 13:7. Some at Rome were weak in the faith, and still observed the days of the typical system; while others, who were stronger, esteemed every day within the range of that system alike. To say that Paul refers to the law of ten commandments, which must stand or fall together, would be to represent him as calling those weak who kept that law, and those strong who violated it. OBJECTION 13. Paul feared he had bestowed labor in vain on those of the Galatians who observed days and months and times and years. Gal. 4:10, 11. ANSWER. It would not be fatal to the Sabbath cause even to admit that the days mentioned in this text were days that the Jews were required to keep; for we find several annual Sabbaths and feast days ordained by the typical system “besides the Sabbaths of the Lord.” Lev. 23:38, etc. But some claim, with a good degree of plausibility, that as the Galatians once “knew not God, but did service unto them which by nature are no gods,” verse 8, they must have been idolatrous Gentiles, and the days Paul here alludes to were days observed by the heathen, corresponding, perhaps, with what some now call lucky days. In adopting either of these interpretations the Sabbath cause remains unshaken. OBJECTION 14. If the Sabbath is still in force, why was it not mentioned in the gospel commission, Matt. 28:19, or in Christ’s reply to the young man, Matt. 19:17–27, or in the decision of the council at Jerusalem, Acts 15, or on the day of Pentecost? Acts 2. ANSWER. (1.) In the gospel commission, not one of the ten commandments is mentioned. Shall we therefore break them all? This commission was to preach the gospel, which is good news of salvation from sin, and sin is the transgression of that law of which the Sabbath is a part. (2.) Christ, in his reply to the young man, did not mention the first four commandments, nor the tenth commandment. Could the young man go to Heaven full of idolatry, profanity, Sabbath-breaking, and covetousness? Christ told the young man unqualifiedly to “keep the commandments.” The young man claimed that he had kept them, but the test to which Christ subjected him evinced that he was not perfect, but was a covetous and idolatrous young man, and did not love God supremely, or his neighbor as himself. (3.) The topic up for discussion in the council at Jerusalem was circumcision and the law of Moses. Acts 15:15. In the decision of that council only one of the ten commandments is alluded to. May we then violate the rest? (4.) On the day of Pentecost, the Jews were commanded to repent of having killed Jesus. This was their great sin at that time. But all this vast multitude, assembled from sixteen different countries, and composed of Jews, and proselytes from the Gentiles, kept the seventh-day Sabbath. What a mighty influence they must have exerted in favor of the Sabbath! And how providential it was that the Jews should thus be scattered in about every nation under heaven. It is unreasonable to select an isolated scripture that does not mention the Sabbath, and conclude therefrom that the Sabbath is not binding. By this mode of reasoning, men can disprove all the doctrines of the Bible. For instance, baptism is not mentioned in the decision of the council, in Acts 15. Shall we then reject baptism? Again, the book of Esther does not mention the name of God. Is there, therefore, no God? Again, the book of Genesis contains no precept to love God or our neighbor. We should take positions in harmony with the general tenor of the Scriptures. OBJECTION 15. The sin of Sabbath-breaking is not condemned in the New Testament. ANSWER. The law of the Sabbath, which is acknowledged and enforced in the New Testament, Matt. 12:12; 5:17–19; 19:17, as strongly reproves sin as it did when Jehovah proclaimed it from Sinai. Hence the example of the Saviour and primitive Christians in keeping the Sabbath, Luke 4:16; 23:54–56, etc., is a standing rebuke against those who knowingly profane the Sabbath; and we should learn from the threatenings of the Lord against Sabbath-breaking in the Old Testament as though they were uttered against the violations of the Sabbath in our day. The fact that no special mention is made in the New Testament of the sin of Sabbath-breaking in the times in which it was written, is good evidence that those preaching and writing in those times were not under the painful necessity of saying as much upon this subject as we are. In other words, the Sabbath was observed by the Christians of those times. The early Christians were largely made up of Jews and pious Gentiles who already kept the Sabbath, and who were confirmed in their practice by the example of Christ and the apostles; and as they observed but one and the same day, they presented a united front to the Gentile world; and those Gentiles who received the gospel would also receive the Sabbath without contestation. Hence we see them at Antioch inviting Paul to preach to them on the next Sabbath day. Acts 13:44. This request was made on the seventh-day Sabbath with reference to the next seventh-day Sabbath, showing that there was no first-day Sabbath between. We also see the Gentiles in the popular city of Corinth joining themselves to Paul and other Jews in the worship of God, “every Sabbath.” Acts 18:4. But it is a remarkable fact that when we come to prophecies relating to our times, we not only see the Sabbath enforced as the seal, sign, or mark of the living God, and a Sabbath reform pointed out, Rev. 7:2; Ex. 31:17; Eze. 20:12, 20; Isa. 58:12, 13; but we also have a solemn warning against deliberately receiving the mark of the beast, papacy, as opposed to the commandments of God and the true Sabbath. Rev. 14:9–12; 7:1, 2; 13:16, 17. Here again we see the sin of knowingly profaning the Sabbath, reproved. OBJECTION 16. Those who pretend to keep the Sabbath, should not go out of their houses, kindle fires in their dwellings, or travel more than a Sabbath day’s journey on that day. Ex. 16:29; 35:3. ANSWER. These prohibitions form no part of the fourth commandment. (1.) The first relates to the Israelites’ not going out of their dwellings to gather manna on the Sabbath, as they were to do this the day before the Sabbath. (2.) The second was a temporary prohibition binding on the children of Israel only in the warm climate of146Arabia when “there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” Ps. 105:37, and when they had their food cooked on Friday. To kindle fires under those circumstances would have been a violation of the fourth commandment. But when the Jews reached the land of Palestine, where there sometimes falls a foot of snow, and the cold is so intense at times as to freeze man and beast, Ps. 147:16–19; Jer. 36:22; John 18:18; Matt. 24:20, it became an act of mercy for them to kindle fires on the Sabbath. (3.) The idea of a Sabbath day’s journey (about one mile, or as some say, two miles and a half) does not come to us as a command. It would be lawful to travel more than that distance in performing acts of mercy; while it would be sinful to travel any distance for secular purposes on that day. But how can the objector permit us to travel a Sabbath day’s journey on the Sabbath, and yet confine us to our houses on that day? The Jews went to and returned from their synagogues, led their beasts to water, took the sheep out of the pit, etc., on the Sabbath day. OBJECTION 17. The first covenant, or law of ten commandments, waxed old and vanished away. Deut. 4:13; Heb. 8:7. ANSWER. The word covenant, as well as the term law, is variously used in the Bible. Gen. 9:8; 17:1–11; Deut. 29:1, etc.; and though the ten commandments are sometimes called covenant in the Scriptures, yet they are not the first covenant. A covenant, in the common acceptation of that term, is a contract or “agreement between two or more parties, embracing mutual conditions and mutual promises.” The first covenant was an agreement respecting the ten commandments, but was not those commandments. Its object was to produce obedience to those commandments. God’s part of this covenant was, “Obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me.” Ex. 19:5. Read also Jer. 11:3, 4. On the part of the people, the stipulation was, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Ex. 19:8; 24:3, 7. This covenant had a mediator, and was dedicated with blood, verse 8; Heb. 9:18–20. “The first covenant,” says Paul, “had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.” Heb. 9:1. The children of Israel broke God’s commandments and forfeited their rights to the blessings of the covenant. God found fault with them (not with the law) and in mercy made a second covenant with them, based, not on better moral principles, but on “better promises,” Heb. 8:6, three of which are: (1.) “I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” (2.) “I will forgive their iniquity.” (3.) “I will remember their sin no more.” Jer. 31:31–34; Heb. 8:7–12. Christ, as mediator of this covenant, confirmed it with many. Dan. 9:27, teaching it in all its branches. Having the law of God written in his heart, Ps. 40:8, he taught it thoroughly, pointing out the rich blessings resulting from obeying it. He also taught the real means of pardon, Matt. 20:28, and instituted the Christian ordinances to keep them in remembrance, Matt. 26:26–29; 28:19; 1 Cor. 11:23–26; Rom. 6:3–5, etc.; and finally sealed the covenant with his own blood. Under the new covenant, instead of having sacrifices that cannot take away sin, and in which “there is a remembrance again made of sins every year,” Heb. 10:3, we have a perfect sacrifice, that brings pardon in the fullest sense, so that our sins will be remembered no more. Instead of the law being written on tables of stone, we have it written by the Spirit of God in the fleshy tables of the heart. 2 Cor. 3:3. The law of God existed before the first covenant was made; the object of both covenants was to secure obedience to it; and it is “the covenant commanded to a thousand generations.” Deut. 4:13; 1 Chron. 16:15. With the following extract from Eld. Andrews concerning the allegory in Isa. 54, and Gal. 4:21–31, we conclude our answer to this objection:— “(1.) The two women, Hagar and Sarah, represent, not the law and the gospel, but old Jerusalem and Jerusalem above. For the mothers of the two families are not the covenants, but the Jerusalems. See verses 25–31. (2.) The two covenants whereby God in his worship is connected with these two Jerusalems, are represented by the relation which Abraham sustained to these two women. (3.) The children of old Jerusalem are the natural descendants of Abraham. (4.) Those of the New Jerusalem are those who are his children by faith and obedience. John 8:39. (5.) The bondage of old Jerusalem was not caused by the law of God, but by sin. John 8:32–36. (6.) The freedom of the children of the heavenly Jerusalem is not their liberty to violate the law of God, but their freedom from sin. Rom. 8:1–7. (7.) Those who are not under the law, but under grace, have been pardoned in consequence of faith and repentance. Rom. 3:19–31. (8.) Finally, our heirship is under the new covenant, not under the old. We have deliverance from sin through the blood of Christ, but not permission to violate the law of God. The design of the new covenant is to rescue us from the condemnation of the law, and not leave us till the law of God is made a part of our very being, and its righteousness is fulfilled in our lives. The old Jerusalem, with its sanctuary, its ark, and its priesthood, has passed away. But Jerusalem which is above is our mother; and in its sanctuary is found, not alone our High Priest with his atoning blood, but also the ark of God, wherein is that law which the new covenant writes in our hearts. Rev. 11:19.” OBJECTION 18. We are not under the law, but under grace. Rom. 6:14. ANSWER. As all have transgressed the law, Rom. 3:19, to be under the law is to be under its curse or penalty; or, according to the first clause of Rom. 6:14, it is to be under the dominion of sin, the wages of which is death. Verse 23. To be under grace, is to be under the favor of Christ, who died to redeem us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us. Gal. 3:13. But does being under grace release us from keeping the law, and therefore give us license to sin? Let the next verse answer: “What then? shall we sin [transgress the law, 1 John 3:4], because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” Verse 15. To thus take the liberty of sinning would evince the basest ingratitude and bring us under the law again. OBJECTION 19. The law and the prophets were until John. Luke 16:16. ANSWER. If this language proves that the law ceased when John appeared, then it was not abolished at the cross. Which position will the objector take? Again, if this text shows that the law ceased at the advent of John, it proves the same in regard to the prophets. Then we have no prophecies that relate to Christ; and who can tell that he was the Messiah? More than this: we have no prophecies of the Old Testament that reach into this dispensation. Matt. 11:13, reads, “The law and the prophets prophesied until John.” Then, the law and the prophets prophesied, or were preached, until John. “Since that time the kingdom of God is preached;” i. e., in addition to the law and the prophets. If Christ, in this passage, designed to teach that the law had passed away, we should expect him thenceforward to speak of it disparagingly, if he mentioned it at all. But in the very next verse and onward he says, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery.” OBJECTION 20. We cannot be justified by the works of the law. Rom. 3:20. ANSWER. Paul tells us, in Rom. 3:20, why we cannot be justified by the deeds of the law: “Therefore,” he says, “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” It is because the law condemns us as sinners that it cannot justify us. If it condemned and justified us at the same time, it would contradict itself and be unjust. This would be true of the law of our own land. The law cannot justify us, because none of our good works can be better than what the law requires, so that our present and future obedience cannot offset against our past sins. Hence, the importance of believing on Christ, who died for our sins, for justification. But in order to be thus justified, we must repent of our transgressions; and then we remain, by faith, in a state of justification, only just so long as we endeavor to render obedience to God’s holy law. None of our good works can cancel our past sins and justify us, not even baptism; and we are justified by faith, not because of its intrinsic value as a mental action, but because of what it takes hold of and appropriates, viz., the merits of Christ’s death. But can we be justified while presumptuously discarding good works? Nay, verily. Faith without works is dead, and a dead faith cannot save us. James 2:26. Christians are created unto good works, Eph. 2:10, and all are to be judged and rewarded according to their works. Rev. 20:12; 22:12. OBJECTION 21. In Rom. 7:1–7, Paul, by the figure of marriage, teaches that we are “dead to the law,” “delivered from the law,” that the law is dead. ANSWER. The proper way to seize the true bearing which Paul’s figure has on the law, is to look at the conclusion that he has drawn therefrom relative to the law. This we find in verses 7–12: “What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” How different is Paul’s conclusion from that of the objector! Instead of conveying the idea that the law is dead, it teaches that the law showed Paul that he was a sinner, and slew him, and that for this reason he speaks of it in the highest terms. Paul, by the figure of marriage, illustrates the subject of conversion. In this figure are four objects: a woman, her first husband, her second husband, and the law of marriage. The first husband dies, and the woman is at liberty to be married to the second husband. The law that bound her to her first husband, binds her to her second husband. In the application, there are also four objects: the sinner, the “old man,” “body of sin,” or “the carnal mind.” Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9, “the new man,” “Lord Jesus Christ,” or “Christ in you the hope of glory,” Col. 1:27, and the law of God. The old man is “crucified,” or “put off,” then the individual can be married to Christ, or the new man can be “put on.” And the law of God, which showed the sinner his relations to the old man, binding him to sin and death, now approves the convert as a righteous man, and thus unites him to Christ, unto eternal life. Says Paul, “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another,” etc., verse 4. We are dead, not the law. This death takes place in repentance, in which the old man dies. But what kills us in repentance? It was the law that slew Paul, verses 10, 11, who also was crucified with Christ. Gal. 2:19, 20. The same law that condemned Paul as a sinner, slew Christ in Paul’s stead. Therefore Christ, by his sacrifice for sin, in the strongest conceivable manner, “condemned sin in the flesh.” Rom. 8:3. We are dead to the law by the body of Christ. The penalty that we deserved for our transgressions of God’s law is met in the body of Christ, that was offered for us; and the law is satisfied. We are thus delivered from it as a condemning rule. “That being dead wherein we were held” is not the law, but sin and condemnation. It was because the law of God could not be revoked that Christ met its penalty for us by his death. And shall we not avoid those transgressions of God’s law which made it necessary for Christ to pay so dear a ransom for us? And can we show that we are converted or changed except by a life of conformity to the law of God? From the fact that in conversion, by “the law of the Spirit of life” was “made free from the law of sin and death,” Rom. 8:2, it is claimed by some that under the gospel a new law takes the place of the law of God. But the law of sin and death is not the law of ten commandments, but is a law that is squarely opposed to that law, and which leads to its transgression; for “sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. To obey the law of sin is to transgress God’s law, and brings condemnation and death. To be made free from the law of sin, is to be brought into obedience to the law of God. But in Rom. 7:22, 23, Paul makes a clear distinction between the law of sin and the law of God: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” This was Paul’s experience while struggling to break away from sin in conversion. See verses 24, 25. By the law of the Spirit of life, which is but another form of expression to denote the gospel, Paul obtained freedom from sin and condemnation, and not license to transgress God’s law. OBJECTION 22. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Rom. 10:4. ANSWER. If Christ being the end of the law means that the law is done away, then the law is abolished to the believer only, while it is still binding on the unbeliever; for Christ is the end of the law “for righteousness to every one that believeth.” End here signifies object or design, as in the following scriptures: “Ye have seen the end of the Lord.” James 5:11. “The end of the commandment is charity.” 1 Tim. 1:5. The object of the law was to make us righteous and give us life, but man transgressed the law and it could not accomplish this object for us. Christ fulfills this object for the repenting believer, who by faith in him puts on his imputed righteousness, lives a life of obedience, and secures eternal life. The folly of rejecting the law because it does not pronounce us righteous or justify us, is illustrated by a carpenter who would throw away his square and his line because they condemn every object to which they are applied. Let the law remain as a reprover of sin to the sinner, that he may go to Christ for salvation, and as a rule of life to the Christian; and let faith in the merits of Christ’s death, accompanied by genuine repentance, remove our sins and defects of character pointed out by the law. The ultimate object of the death of Christ was “that the righteousness [or right doing] of the law might be fulfilled in us,” and that we might overcome the carnal mind which “is not subject to the law of God.” Rom. 8:4, 7, 13. OBJECTION 23. That which was “written and engraven in stones” was “done away” and “abolished.” 2 Cor. 3:7, 11, 13, 14. ANSWER. 1. That which was done away was “the ministration of death,” or of the law of ten commandments “written and engraven in stones.” The ministration of a thing is not the thing itself. “The ministration of the Spirit,” or of “the Lord,” verses 8, 17, is not the Spirit or the Lord; and the ministration of the ten commandments is not those commandments. 2. Ministration comes from a Greek word which signifies the service performed by a minister (Greenfield), or an administration. 2 Cor. 9:12. Under the old ministration, death without mercy was administered to the wilful transgressor of God’s law. This typical death penalty, forming a part of the civil code of the Jews, was done away; but the law remains the same. And if nine of the commandments can exist without the temporal penalty of death, the fourth can. 3. The ministration of death, or condemnation, was glorious, because it extolled the justice of God’s law and shadowed forth the work of Christ. The ministration of the Spirit is more glorious, because that under it we behold the Lord, as it were, with open face; mercy and truth meet together, and the penalty is not immediately inflicted; for we have a better sacrifice than those that prefigured it. 4. The ten commandments are here called death according to a figure of speech by which the cause is put for the effect, as in the expressions, “There is death in the pot.” 2 Kings 4:40. “The words that I speak unto you . . . they are life.” John 6:63, etc., etc. The ten commandments were ordained to give life to the obedient, but men, by breaking them, have found them to be death. 5. Moses was the leading minister under the old ministration; hence, that which was abolished is said to be the glory of Moses’ countenance. Verses 7, 13. This glory represented the glory of the typical system, and was covered by the veil when Moses came down from the mount. But the law was not covered by the veil. Moses held it in his hands. Ex. 34:29–35. 6. That which was done away did not exist when Paul wrote this passage, A. D. 60; for he says, “that which is done away,” and “that which is abolished;” and not that which was done away, and that which was abolished, but a part of which has come to life again. And who dares say that not one of the ten commandments was then in existence? 7. Again, the words “done away” and “abolished” in this passage (verses 7, 11,14713, 14) are translated from the same Greek word which is rendered “make void” in Rom. 3:31: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” The ministration of death was made void by faith; but the law of God was not. 8. Finally, with the idea that Christ did no sin, but kept the commandments, and that under the ministration of the Spirit, the law of God is to be written by the Spirit of the living God on the fleshy tables of the heart, Jer. 31:33; 2 Cor. 3:3, how deeply interesting is the last verse of this chapter: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”