p. 68 | J. H. WAGGONER by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 1, 1877

J. H. WAGGONER

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

2 COR. 3: 7.

I THINK our good brother M. wrote incautiously upon this text. The declaration that “Moses was not a priest” cannot be maintained. Reading Ex. 24: 4-6, all of chapter 29, and other like passages, we learn that Moses officiated in every act peculiar to priesthood. But we are not left to infer it from these passages. Ps. 99: 6 says, “Moses and Aaron among his priests.” This settles that point.

Again, by reading 2 Cor. 3, noting verses 6 and 14, we find there is a comparison of the two covenants (Gr., diatheekee), and the ministration therefore must refer to the priestly service under the two testaments or covenants. Moses is referred to because he was the first mediator, or priest, of the old covenant. He received the law, and erected and anointed the sanctuary, and thus he stood as the representative of that covenant, and the most prominent type of Christ of all who served under that covenant.

After carefully examining this subject for years, I am convinced that the translation of Prof. Anderson, quoted in the tract entitled, “The Ten Commandments not Abolished,” 1868, gives the true idea of the text. He regarded it as elliptical, and not as meaning that the ministration was written in the stone. As a matter of fact there was no ministration or priestly service so much as hinted at by the writing on the tables of stone. Other eminent authorities which I had not examined in 1868 confirm this view. Prof. Anderson has evidently consulted these authorities in making his translation. In the articles on the law, which it is expected will soon be published in book form, some of these authorities will be collated for the benefit of all.

As investigation brings out the light, it is clearly seen that opposers of God’s holy law have no advantage on 2 Cor. 3: 7.

As all may not have before them the quotation referred to, we copy from the tract, as follows:—

“Mr. Anderson, author of a translation which is becoming very popular among Disciples, regarded the expression in the first part of verse 7 as elliptical, and supplies as follows: ‘But if the ministration of death by means of a covenant written and engraven in stones,’ &c. Mr. Anderson does not pretend that the original contains these supplied words, as he places them in italics, but he doubtless does consider, and correctly too, we think, that the supply is necessary from the obvious fact that the word ministration cannot refer to that which was written on the tables of stone.”

J. H. WAGGONER

Oakland, Cal., Feb. 11, 1877.