WHAT NEXT? by J. O. Corliss

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 21, 1877

WHAT NEXT?

By J. O. Corliss

A FRIEND of mine was talking the other day with a prominent minister on the perpetuity of God’s law through both dispensations, when the minister remarked that Christ at his death abolished the law, and the apostles afterward re-enacted it, with the exception of the fourth commandment. Said my friend, “How could a law be enacted, and become valid under the new covenant, after that covenant was ratified and sealed by the blood of Christ?” “Oh! easily enough,” said the minister, “from the fact that at the death of Christ it was not known just what man needed; and as it is God’s prerogative to change his law at will, he gave parts of the new law at different times, as it was needed, through his disciples.”

This position was so novel that I was at first amused. How extremely hopeless a cause must be to require its supporters to make such reckless statements, the transparency of which, instead of proving a support to their cherished theory, only betrays the desperation of those who advance them! Thought I, What next will antinomians produce in support of their theory?

It is an established rule that when a covenant has once been confirmed between parties, neither has authority to alter its conditions. Said the inspired apostle, when writing on the validity of the Abrahamic covenant, “Brethren, I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto.” Gal. 3: 15. The new covenant was ratified by the death of Christ. After his blood was spilled, the covenant was in full force, and Jesus ascended to Heaven to be its mediator. Heb. 8: 1–6. From the moment of his death, then, no change could be admissible, either in the conditions or the ceremonies required in the new covenant. In fact, all conditions and ceremonies not established before the death of Christ, and sealed in the new covenant as a part of it by his blood, can never after be a part of that covenant.

But were all the ordinances of the gospel instituted before his death, and sealed in the new covenant by his blood? Yes. The law of God, too, was kept before his death, and Paul says it was not made void through faith, but established. Rom. 3: 31. But can you, says one, show where the fourth commandment was recognized after the death of Christ? Most certainly. Go to Luke’s testimony, and in speaking of the crucifixion day he says (chap. 23: 54-56), “And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women

returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.”

Now if that commandment was abolished the day before, at the death of Christ, it did not exist, and they could not keep the Sabbath according to a commandment that did not exist. To illustrate: A clause in the law of Virginia a few years ago required a man to be hanged for horse-stealing; but that law was abolished, and on a certain day it ceased to exist. Now, if on the next day they had hanged a man for stealing a horse, he would have been hanged, but not according to the law; for no such law existed. So in the above case of Sabbath-keeping. If the command for it had been abolished the day before, they could not have kept it according to the commandment. But they did keep it according to the commandment after the death of Christ. And if the fourth commandment existed in the new covenant one day after its ratification, it will always remain there as a safeguard to God’s holy day, the seventh day of the week. J. O. CORLISS.