MARRIAGE AND THE SABBATH.
By O. Davis
The reasoning of Jesus on the marriage institution, when questioned by the Pharisees touching its obligations, has seemed to me worthy of consideration in its bearing upon the Sabbath question. The Pharisees asked him if it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause. As they asked for the law in the case, let us note carefully where Jesus gets the law by which the institution should be governed. Does he go back to Moses’ day to find the true law by which God designed that the institution should be regulated? No. Does he go back to the days of Abraham, of Noah, or of any of the patriarchs who lived after the fall, to find the law? No. Where does he go, then? To the institution as it was established from the beginning. For did he not know that the works were finished from the foundation of the world? We will let Jesus speak for himself: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Here he finds the true marriage law, the institution just as God, the Creator, gave it to man. But the Pharisees reply, “Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put43her away? He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so.” How clearly this language of Jesus recognizes the wisdom of God; and that God does not need to mend his work or to have fallen man mend it for him. Even Jesus himself does not undertake to mend it, but simply cites us to it as that which is just right and just calculated to meet the wants of man. He upholds the institutions of his Father, and shows that he is indeed a loyal son. How true the language of Jesus, “I have glorified thy name.” And truly, where should we expect to find the institutions made for man in their purity, and as best adapted to meet his wants and regulate his life, except where they came from the hands of his Creator? And did not the Creator himself call his works good, and say that they were finished? And if the works were finished by the Creator, can they be improved by poor fallen man? Does not the language of Jesus imply that all attempts to change the institution have only detracted from its high and holy purpose? Now, if this reasoning of our Saviour’s is true (and who that has any faith in his mission can doubt it?), does it not apply with equal force to the Sabbatic institution? It was made at the same time, for the same people, and by the same God. Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for man. Then, according to the example that Jesus has set us, where shall we look to find the institution as God made it? We must do as directed by Jesus in the case of the marriage institution, read how it was in the beginning. Did God see the end from the beginning in the case of the marriage institution, thus being enabled to adapt it to the wants of his creatures, and make a mistake in the case of the Sabbatic institution? Do we glorify God by such a position? Do we not dishonor him, and show that we are not his loyal subjects? With the subject thus before us, how clear the language of Scripture, “The law entered that the offense might abound”! The law does not originate the obligations it enforces; it is given to secure our obedience to them. They grow out of creation itself; and were it possible to take away the law, the obligations would still exist. Hence, it is a recognized declaration of the New Testament that “whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law”; and that “sin is the transgression of the law.” Then, is it not true of an institution made for man and necessary to him, that it should not be changed from what it was when it came from the Creator’s hand? Man in his Eden state was in harmony with God and his institutions, and when he fell, was it not the mission of his Saviour to bring him into harmony with God and his institutions again? And this is the very foundation of his reasoning with reference to the marriage institution that we have been considering; and it applies with equal force to the Sabbatic institution.