Your ShelfYour Projects

Living Oracles

17%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1873

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 42, No. 26.

Read the full edition

Living Oracles.

By R. F. Cottrell

“THIS is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sina, and with our fathers; who received the lively oracles to give unto us.”
At mount Sinai an angel spake to Moses and with the fathers of the Hebrew people, who received the lively oracles, says Stephen, to give unto us. What was spoken to the fathers at Mount Sinai? The ten commandments. The first martyr who sealed his testimony for Christ and his teachings with his blood, so filled with the Holy Spirit that his accusers and enemies “saw his face as it had been the face of an angel,” calls the ten commandments lively, or living, oracles.
Oracle is from a Latin word which signifies “to speak, utter, from os, oris, the mouth.” The term oral is derived from the same, and is defined, “Pertaining to the mouth; uttered by the mouth, or in words; spoken, not written.” Now God spoke the ten commandments to the fathers at Mount Sinai, “and he added no more.” Hence, these are the lively oracles of the text. How wide of the mark was Alexander Campbell, when he published his translation of the New Testament under the title of “Living Oracles,” as though the oracles of the Old Testament were dead!
R. F. COTTRELL.