What Has Passed Away

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 14.

What Has Passed Away.

"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Cor. 5:17. There are many who apply this to the keeping of the commandments, especially to the keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath. Such persons seem to forget that the very next clause adds, "And all things are of God." The seventh-day Sabbath is one thing that is of God; for the commandment says: "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." The "old man," the "body of sin" (Rom. 6:6), is the sum of the "old things" that have passed away to those who are "in Christ." "Sin is the transgression of the law;" therefore those who are in Christ have put away transgressions of the law. Out of Christ they could not keep the law acceptably (Rom. 8:7, 8); in Christ they are able to do the things that are of God, among which the fourth commandment stands prominent.