THE COMMANDMENTS.—PART 1.
By A. C. Spicer
The Sabbath and the Ordinances of the Old Covenant.—Their Similarities and Dissimilarities. THEN that circumcision of the heart which God demanded of man, and to secure which was the direct object of that covenant, was henceforth to be sought by all who would attain unto life until that life be found through Jesus Christ at the resurrection of the just. Then, also, that repentance, humiliation, faith, and obedience, required, and then specially re-enjoined and encouraged by such glorious promises, and by Abraham promised, must needs be taught, first to his posterity, to whom according to the flesh pertained the temporal, material promises, and then to all men to whom, in common with them, were offered the eternal rewards. Hence, according to the almost universal method of teaching by symbols in earlier times, that inward circumcision of the heart required, must have its outward symbol,—the internal and unseen must be represented by an external sign; that unseen effect on the character must be represented by that which could be seen in the physical. Therefore the circumcision of the flesh was instituted as an ordinance to represent by an external sign what was required and promised as an internal work. Gen. 17:9–14. In giving it, God called it “a token of the covenant.” Paul (Rom. 4:11) calls it “the sign, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised,” &c. Outward circumcision of the flesh, then, was but a symbol, a token, a sign, of the inward work under faith, required in the heart, which might be “imputed” “for righteousness.” Verse 22. It signified consciousness of guilt, sorrow for sin and penitence therefor, humiliation, and entire submission to God, and a confession that death was deserved, not only, but that the natural seed was corrupted and sold under sin unto death, and could not inherit the promise of eternal life; and that those who would inherit that promise must crucify the flesh with the lusts thereof, die unto sin and the world, and be cleansed and purified. Hence it was, that Isaac, who was promised in the covenant, could not be accepted as representing the seed who might inherit the heavenly promises; but God says, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” That representative seed could be none less pure and holy than the Son of God. Isaac’s children might, indeed, inherit the temporal promises; but only Christ’s children can inherit the heavenly and eternal promises. Then again as those covenant promises were of a two-fold nature, partly temporal and partly eternal, in part material and in part heavenly; and as circumcision was also two-fold, that of the inward sanctification of the heart, and that which was outward in the flesh; so, also, in harmony therewith, the sign or token of that covenant was two-fold, outward and inward. The inward sign was repentance, confession, humiliation, submission, faith, consecration and an obedient and holy life wrought out by the aid of the Holy Spirit in the heart. That was a perpetual token that the plan of redemption proposed by God was accepted in good faith, and that the covenantor cheerfully accepted all the duties it imposed, and by faith “put on Christ,” and by virtue of having become Christ’s accepted child, he had become one of Abraham’s seed and an heir of eternal life according to the covenant promise. The outward sign or token was a circumcision of the flesh. That was a metaphorical symbol to indicate by an outward sign what was required within the heart. It meant a “crucifying of the flesh with the affections and lusts,”—a putting off the whole body and life of sin and a “putting on the new man.” It was an external “seal of the righteousness of faith,” and every time seen it was to remind the child of faith of the flesh mortification and heart sanctification demanded by God. Furthermore, while the inward circumcision of the heart, heart sanctification, was required as a sign of the acceptance of the covenant in respect primarily to the eternal rewards, and a condition upon which they were to be bestowed, on the other hand the external circumcision of the flesh was adopted as referring more especially to the secondary promises of the covenant—to the earthly rewards. Thus the outward circumcision in the flesh, which was primarily a visible symbol of the invisible, inward circumcision, was adopted as a token or sign of the covenant primarily in relation to the limited, temporal promises; and hence also it was restricted to the people who were entitled to inherit the temporal promises, and limited, as to time, to the time when the holy “seed should come to whom the promise of eternal possession was made” (the time when Christ should come), and by his blood, “shed for many for the remission of sins,” be able to “confirm that promise made unto the fathers,” and thus re-establish “the better covenant upon the better promises.” Heb. 8:6; Matt. 26:28; Gal. 3; Col. 2. 3. The second great event to be noticed here was the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. That event and the mercy of the Lord to the Israelites when he smote all of the first-born of the Egyptians, was memorialized by an annual festival called the “ordinance of the passover.” As noticed when reviewing Ex. 12, an analysis of that ordinance presents the following characteristics: a. It was termed by God “the ordinance of the passover,” “the feast of unleavened bread.” b. It was a commemorative festival. “This shall be unto you for a memorial.” c. It was to continue throughout the generations of the children of Israel as a peculiar, national people. d. It was restricted to the Israelites. “All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.” “A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof.” “There shall no stranger eat thereof.” e. It was, moreover, restricted to the male population of Israel. Ex. 24:23. f. It was an annual, seven days’ feast. g. That was not to be observed then, as it was not for forty-three years; but when they were established in the promised land. Then, it was a special, memorial, festive, thanksgiving, annual ordinance of seven days’ duration restricted to the males of Israel and excluding all others; instituted to aid the Israelites to keep in remembrance that “with a strong hand the Lord had brought them out of Egypt,” and to recall annually the goodness of God to them, to the end that by these remembrances they might be “constrained” to love God and to “keep his commandments, his statutes, and his laws.” Although during that seven days’ festival, all usual “servile work186was forbidden, yet exclusive sabbath rest was not required.” 4. Two other annual, national, festival ordinances were instituted by God for Israel in connection with the giving of the national civil statutes as recorded in Ex. 23:4–19. The first was the “feast of harvest,”—“of the first-fruits of wheat harvest;” the second, “the feast of ingathering at the end of the year.” These possessed no memorial character, and were only of one day’s duration each, but were simply national, annual, thanksgiving ordinances. They were occasions for annually giving thanks to God for his goodness and mercy to them in supplying their temporal wants and blessing and prospering them. In other respects their characteristics were like that of the passover, and hence they were restrictive, exclusive, and limited, just as was it. Then as these three annual festivals were but national ordinances, they were limited to the period of the distinct nationality of the Israelites, and ceased by limitation when the Israelites ceased to be a distinct nation. The fact that they were ecclesiastical as well as civil ordinances did not and could not extend them into the Christian dispensation, did not entail them upon the reorganized church under Christ. In fact those three festival ordinances, together with circumcision, constituted the base of that “middle wall of partition” between Jews and Gentiles, which Paul declared was “broken down” by Christ, so “making both [Jews and Gentiles] one.” Of that wall, circumcision was the head corner stone while the three festival ordinances helped to constitute the foundation, and it was built up afterwards of a multitude of meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances, with their law of carnal commandments, called “the handwriting of ordinances,” “imposed on them until the time of reformation.” Those were appropriately called a “middle wall of partition” by Paul, and were properly said to be “against us and contrary to us,” because they were restricted to the Israelites, and excluded all other peoples from the privileges of their ecclesiastical organization. They were right in themselves, and adapted to the times and purposes for which they were constituted as means of instruction in faith and discipline to obedience. They were the “school master” to teach faith until Christ should come. But when he came, our Teacher, they were no longer needed or applicable, and hence that rudimental teacher was discharged,—“abolished in Christ’s flesh,”—“nailed to the cross,”—as it was termed. But what was then so dismissed was the “law of carnal commandments” “contained in ordinances,” which were a “shadow of things to come,” and which were “added” (to the precepts of the law of holiness) “because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made”; i. e., Christ. Therefore to acknowledge obligation to keep the Sabbath as appointed in Eden as an institution of holiness, and to recognize the moral law as still binding on man, both of which were fundamental and existed before transgression, and as such are recognized (as still binding) in the New Testament as emphatically as in the Old, does not imply obligation to keep those “carnal ordinances” and “law of carnal commandments” which have been “blotted out.” No more does it than acknowledging obligation to obey the law of marriage, the law of chastity, the commandment against theft or murder or perjury, implies obligation to be circumcised and to keep all those other carnal ordinances and the law of types and ritual ceremonies of the past dispensation. Observe the contrast:— 1. The Sabbath was instituted in Eden, and it was there sanctified to man before his transgression. So was the moral law, the fourth precept of which commands the observance of the Sabbath, and regulates man’s conduct in respect to it. Both the Sabbath and the moral law, then, were adapted to a condition, and provided for a religion, of holiness. 2. Those carnal ordinances were instituted, circumcision 2166 years, and the passover and the other two annual festivals with their regulating laws, 2513 years, after the transgression and sin of the race. And these were adapted to a condition only, of depravity by sin; and they and their regulating law were constituted as temporary aids to instruction in faith, to help lift fallen man up from his low estate and lead in faith and hope to a better life till a better and perfect instructor should come and lift him up to a higher life in purer, clearer light, and imparting divine strength, enable him to walk heavenward by the light of the noonday “Sun of Righteousness.” 3. The Sabbath and the principles of the moral law were universal in their character, being applicable to all men in all times and under all conditions and circumstances of life, and providing for all general obligations, and commanding all general duties, protecting all virtues, and forbidding all vices. Hence they were unrestricted in their application, unlimited as to time; and, being founded in the nature and relations of moral beings and in the need of man, they were irrepealable. At and from the day the Sabbath was given to man, all were, and have been, required to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” without distinction as to seasons or places and without restriction as to sex, nationality, age, or condition. 4. On the other hand, those ordinances and their regulating laws, were special, restricted to the Israelites and to the male sex in Canaan, and limited, as “shadows,” to the incarnation and death of Christ. 5. The Sabbath was given as a memorial institution to commemorate the work of creating the heavens and the earth and all created things and the rest of God from that work, and was designed to stand forth before the world as such memorial monument, upon which all men in all times and places might read, as it comes around in the weekly cycle, “There is a God, and but one living and true, and that is he who created the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that in them is and rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had created and made, wherefore he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it;” and thus by its recurrence, recalling every one of those facts, commands the heart’s love back to God, rebukes idolatry, and constrains from all men exclusive honor and homage to the Creator of all. 6. Those ordinances were adopted as merely educating and disciplining expedients, restricted to one exclusive people, and to a period of only about 1500 years. 7. Again, those ordinances and statutes and ceremonial laws served their temporary purpose until Christ came, when at his crucifixion they were no longer needed or applicable, and all, ecclesiastically considered, expired with him upon the cross. The civil statutes became inoperative soon thereafter when that people ceased to exercise the functions of civil government. But had the Sabbath accomplished its purposes and ceased to be needed by man? Verily, no. Nor shall it so long as there is a God to be remembered and worshiped, and a mortal who owes such homage and needs the hallowing influence of its suggestive and reminding character and of its sanctifying opportunities and appointments. Nor has the moral law accomplished its purposes and ceased to be needed,—nor will it ever, so long as there are moral intelligences to be subject to the government of God.