p. 6 | The Seal of God by Asa O. Tait

Pacific Press Publishing Company · MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA · Sep 4, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 36.

The Seal of God

By Asa O. Tait

EVERY power that promulgates a law must have authority to do so, and the law, in order to be operative, must have a seal upon it or within it that shows the territory of the one giving the law.

Does the law of Ten Commandments contain such a sign of authority? Does the law that was given by the Lord Himself contain a seal or a sign by which all the world, yes, by which all the universe of worlds, may know of His power to give the law in the territory of which He is the rightful ruler?

The law of the Lord as proclaimed by Him from the top of Mount Sinai is to be found in the first part of the twentieth chapter of Exodus. The last five of the commandments of this law do not contain at all the name of the Lord Jehovah who gives the law. Each of the first five makes mention of the Lord, but if you will take out the fourth, or Sabbath commandment, you will see that none of the other commandments give a description of the One making the law, nor tell the territory over which He rules, nor define His power. The fourth commandment, however, is ample and clear upon all these points. Let us read it together and note what it says:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord [Jehovah] thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord [Jehovah] made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord [Jehovah] blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." Ex. 20: 8-11.

First, we are called upon to "remember the Sabbath day;" then we are told that the Sabbath is the "seventh day," and further we are told that neither ourselves, our family, nor our beasts are to work on that day. Then follows the sublime declaration that the One who proclaims this law is no less a personage than He who is the Creator of all things; He made the heavens and the earth. And being thus the mighty Creator, He tells us that this is the "wherefore" of His giving this commandment to observe the Sabbath, and His authority to give the Sabbath commandment is His authority for giving all the rest of the law.

When a general law is promulgated in this country, the law itself states it was made by the Congress of the United States of America; when England proclaims a law, it is said that it is done by her king, and so on thru all the nations. And when the great God of the universe proclaims His law, He upholds His right to do it by directing our attention to the fact that He is the Creator, and therefore He has the right to be the Lawgiver.

And so He says in His word, "Verily ye shall keep My Sabbaths; for it is a sign between Me and you thruout your generations; that ye may know that I am Jehovah who sanctifieth you." Ex. 31: 13. And thru His prophet Ezekiel He twice over repeats the same thought that the Sabbath is the sign of power by which we are to know the Creator. He says, "Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." "And hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20: 12, 20.

Observe that the Scripture tells plainly that the Sabbath is God's "sign" by which we may know Him. This fact is repeated and emphasized. God does not repeat and emphasize things that are of only ordinary importance. It must be that only special things are thus to be emphasized.

The Sabbath is much more than a mere day of rest. It is the "sign" of God's authority and of God's power. It is the "sign" by which we may know that He has the ability to sanctify us and fit us for the joys of eternity. The Sabbath is much more than a religious dogma or part of a creed. It is the sign of God's power, it is the seal of His authority. Then, when under the proclamation of the third angel's message, a people is developed who "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus" they will of necessity be keepers of the true Sabbath of Jehovah. For, as recently shown in this paper, they are to be worshipers of "Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14: 7.

Sabbath-keeping, then, is far beyond and much broader than the mere resting from labor on a given day of the week. True Sabbath-keeping brings us in touch with the creative power of the Creator Himself. For Sabbath-keeping is God's sign to us that He doth sanctify us. His word says it and it is so.

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Eph. 2: 10. We are "created in Christ Jesus." The converted man is a new creation. "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new." 1 Cor. 5: 17.

Then when we receive the Sabbath as the memorial of God's creative power it becomes much more to us than a memorial of the creation of the heavens and the earth; it is a sign to us of the power of God in creation, and that He is therefore able to and does create us anew in Christ Jesus. And thus do we see when we accept the Sabbath upon God's plan as given in His word that it has a broad, soul-satisfying and soul-uplifting power and significance in it.

But do not fail to note that if we would enjoy the blessings of God's plan of Sabbath-keeping we must be created anew; we must have the seal of the Sabbath truth impressed upon us by the Lord's great Sealer, the Holy Spirit of promise. "In whom [Christ], having also believed, ye are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." Eph. 1: 13. "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption." Eph. 4: 30.

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The Seal of God.

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The Holy Spirit is the agency that God uses in sealing us, and the sign or seal of His power of creation—His creation of the universe and His creation of us as individuals anew in Christ Jesus—is His Sabbath that He Himself has instituted. He is the Creator, and He has given a memorial of His creative power. Will we receive it for all that it is?

With these thoughts before us we can readily see the force of the following prophetic utterances: "Bind thou up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples. And I will wait for Jehovah, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him. Behold, I and the children whom Jehovah hath given Me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from Jehovah of hosts, who dwelleth in Mount Zion." Isa. 8: 16-18. Heb. 2: 13 quotes a part of the foregoing verses and makes the application to the Christian dispensation. Then one work for Christ's followers in this dispensation is to restore the seal to His law, and we have already learned that the Sabbath commandment is the sealing portion of that law.

And, coming as the grand climax, we find that in the view that John had of the remnant church that would pass thru the struggles incident to the stubborn efforts of Satan in the last days, he "saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." "And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads." Rev. 7: 2, 3; 14: 1.