Words to the World by C. D. M. Williams

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 2, 1902

Words to the World

By C. D. M. Williams

C. D. M. WILLIAMS

“He that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.” John 8:26. In these last days some are saying that we have no right to use the teachings of Christ in the four Gospels for doctrine. Only the epistles are for doctrine: Christ, in his earthly ministry, taught only the Jews under the old dispensation. Therefore we have no need to take heed to his teaching unless the same thing is taught in the epistles of the apostles. But Christ says, “I speak to the world.” “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Then while he was in the world, he was the light, not of the Jews only, but of the world, and the words that he spoke were to the world. “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. . . . I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” From these passages of scripture it is very plain that Christ had a message not only for the Jews, but for the world. And that the world will meet his words in the great day of judgment.

Let us consider some things that God sent his Son to proclaim to the world: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27, 28. By this we know of what Sabbath Christ is Lord. It is the Sabbath that, at that time, had been made for man, which can be no other than the seventh-day Sabbath. He does not claim to be Lord of a sabbath that is to come, but of one already in existence.

God, foreseeing that there would arise a power that would think to change his law, that part of his law that related to his Sabbath; and foreseeing that this same power would try to make man believe that Christ was Lord of a sabbath that man had made, sent his Son to proclaim to the world that the Son of man was Lord of the Sabbath that God had made for man. This was a warning to man that he might not be deceived by any false sabbath that might arise. So all man has to do when a false sabbath, or Lord’s day, does come up, like the Friday of Mohammed or the Sunday of Rome, is to say, Is that the message which God sent to the world by his Son? Had men always gone back to this for authority, no Mohammedan Friday or Roman Sunday would ever have been acknowledged by Christians as the Lord’s day.

When God sends a message to the world through his only Son that Christ is Lord of the Sabbath that God has made for man, what right has man to send back a message to God that Christ is Lord of a sabbath that man has made for God? Whose words are we to meet in the judgment? Shall we meet man’s testimony as to what day is the Lord’s day, or shall we meet the message that God has sent to the world through his Son? Christ says, “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” Dear reader, how shall we stand in the judgment?