INSTRUCTING THE LORD

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 13, 1877

INSTRUCTING THE LORD.

The prophet asks, “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught him.” Isa. 40:13. Yet there is no lack of men now-a-days to tell him what would have been appropriate and consistent in his work if he had only done it. A notable example of this is given us by the Rev. R. H. Howard, in an article on the Sabbath question which appeared in Zion’s Herald of Oct. 25, 1877. He says:—

“There is a pestilent heresy known as Seventh-day Adventism, prevalent in certain sections of our work, which, we are told, is making sad havoc among our members as well as among those of some other churches, leading captive certain unsophisticated minds and unsettling the faith of many.”

Pausing at the end of this, his first paragraph, only long enough to exclaim, Hallelujah! we pass on to what we suppose he calls arguments.

“It seems to me that the fact that the first day of the week was divinely appointed to be the Christian Sabbath, will sufficiently appear in the light of the following considerations:—”

Here he takes for granted the whole question. A “fact” is something done or accomplished; but it so happens that it is not yet a “fact” that the first day of the week was divinely appointed to be the Christian Sabbath. That is yet to be done, if ever. Let him not thus confound facts with fictions. He continues:—

“Many circumstances connected with ancient Jewish usage and economy would seem to be intended to prepare men’s minds for some change in the institution of the Sabbath.”

We have in this the beginning of what abounds in the article; namely, the utter absence of positive testimony, and, instead of this, conclusions drawn from mere suppositions. For every change that did really take place with the introduction of this dispensation, we have a positive prediction. Thus it was plainly declared that the yearly sabbaths and all the feast days of the Jews should cease; Hos. 2:11; and that all the sacrifices and offerings of that typical dispensation should come to an end; Dan. 9:27; and that that covenant should give place to the new. Jer. 31:31–33. But nothing is said or intimated by any prophet to show that the weekly Sabbath would ever be changed or abolished. Starting out to give the evidence from which some change would “seem to be intended,” Mr. H. strangely enough admits a fact which renders such change forever impossible. Here it is:—

“The law prescribing a day of rest after six days’ labor, had been from the beginning. It was given in Paradise, impressively recognized in the wilderness of Sin, and solemnly announced from Mount Sinai.”

The foregoing admission that the institution, and the law for it, have come down to us from Paradise, is an effectual barrier against any idea of change; for no law that existed in Eden before sin entered, and which would have continued had sin not entered, could be changed by the introduction of sin, nor by the different dispensations to which the plan of redemption has given rise. Such is the Sabbath, among the primary, immutable, and eternal institutions of Paradise.

So far he stands on the firm platform of truth; but now he takes a fearful step downward. He says that this “memorial of the world’s creation, was received into the Jewish economy as a memorial also of the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage.”

What connection is there between the creation and the deliverance of Israel? Not a shadow of resemblance. How, then, could the same institution be a memorial of them both? Nothing could be more absurd. God gave the Jews a memorial of their deliverance, in the passover, an appropriate one, expressly provided and enjoined upon them. What need of another? There was no need and there was no other. If any refer to Deut. 5:15, we answer that the Sabbath was no more a memorial of their deliverance than was the practice of mercy and righteousness, Deut. 24:17, 18, and the keeping of every one of God’s commandments. Lev. 19:35–37.

We now come to a series of expressions to which we call the especial attention of the reader. He says:—

“Meantime what more probable than that a dispensation so important, and in some respects so new, as that of Christianity, should be presumed to require, in adaptation to its own character and purposes, some alterations in the Sabbath?”

Then why has not the Lord said something of the kind? If Mr. H. had only been there to instruct the Lord in this matter, and told him how “probable” it was that something of this kind could be “presumed,” and therefore he ought to make such a change, how nicely it could have been fixed up. But the Lord has passed it by in silence, and all Mr. H.’s probabilities and presumptions will not help the matter. Hear him further in the same strain:—

“What more natural than that as the Jewish Sabbath, as we have just seen, for sufficient reasons took on a political and ceremonial character, the Christian Sabbath should be in like manner allowed to commemorate, or to become forever associated with, some salient and characteristic feature of the new dispensation?”

But hold! we must first have a Christian Sabbath before it can be “allowed to commemorate,” or to “become associated” with, anything. And when was it brought into existence? Where is the rest upon it, the blessing, and the law for it, all of which the Sabbath must have? Here, again, how Mr. H. could have instructed the Lord to set up a Christian Sabbath as a memorial, it would be so “natural”! But the Lord did not take that view of it, and hence has said nothing of the kind.

Again he says: “Why should it be thought a thing incredible that the great work of redemption should have a prominent niche and statue in this monumental institute” of the Sabbath? Well, are we to believe everything that isn’t incredible, without any instruction on the point? Is this the basis on which God now rests his truth? It would not be incredible, if God had only told us that a Sabbath had been provided to commemorate the work of redemption. But as he has not told us so, it ought to be a thing incredible that any man should presume to tear down God’s ancient memorial, without any leave or license so to do, and try to set up in its place a new one without one word of either permission or instruction in the matter. If this is not a Heaven-daring, blasphemous work, where shall we find it? This is the work that has been done by the “man of sin,” 2 Thess. 2:3, 4; Dan. 7:25, and it is time that Protestants ceased to follow in his wake.

He argues further that if the Jewish Sabbath told us of the completion of creation, “why not the Christian Sabbath, together with this, tell us also of that new creation more glorious by far than the old, and therefore more entitled to remembrance.” We answer, It would, if God had only told us so; but as he has not, all the “why nots” of Christendom will not alter the matter a particle.

In this last quotation he intimates that “the Christian Sabbath,” by which he means Sunday, may be a memorial of creation. But this is utterly impossible; for God did not rest upon the first day of the week. For the same reason the fourth commandment cannot be used to enforce it. The moment we try it, we make it utter a falsehood. Let this be ever borne in mind, that the fourth commandment has nothing whatever to do with a first-day Sabbath.

Like the multitudes who have gone before him, he says that redemption is greater than creation. We ask, as we have asked a thousand times and as many times waited in vain for an answer, how he knows this. And we wait again before following to its end the sickening series of assumptions on which this argument rests. He speaks of the new creation; but that has not yet come, and for this very good reason cannot yet be commemorated. Hear him further elucidate the question with his profound logic in the absence of all revelation:—

“Certainly, if the material creation merited a memorial, still more the moral; if the temporal deliverance of a single nation deserved to have an institution enacted in its honor, incalculably more the spiritual and eternal salvation of a multitude no man can number.”

Well, didn’t the Lord know this? or has it been left for Mr. H. to inform him? And is the ancient Sabbath to be overturned and another day for another purpose introduced to commemorate this? Then why has not the Lord told us something about it?

The reader will notice how coolly the fact is ignored that we have any memorials connected with the work of redemption. But what about the Lord’s supper and baptism? Do not the symbols of the eucharist represent the death of Christ, and does not baptism represent his resurrection? So the Scriptures expressly declare. And are not these memorials enough? Do they not cover the whole ground? Are they not appropriate? Could God consistently give more? What language, then, can be used to properly characterize the work of those men who virtually set aside this arrangement of the Lord, in favor of one of their own, which they devise by first sitting in judgment on the works of the Almighty, and with their finite powers determining which one of two of God’s infinite works is the greater, though the Bible does not declare it; and then assuming that that greater work is finished, which the Bible denies; and then that it should have a memorial different from any which God has provided; and then that that memorial should consist of a day observed as a Sabbath, though there is no correspondence between the event and the memorial; and then that it should be the first day of the week though there is nothing to give this day preference over that day on which Christ’s blood was shed, through which, says Paul, we have redemption; and then that the observance should be weekly, though there is nothing in the case to suggest that proportion of time; and lastly, that this being established, the old, with which it has no connection, should be discarded, though never annulled by God, and the other kept without prophecy, precedent, or law! Perhaps assumption and presumption can go further than this; but it has never been our lot to meet it.

The following additional point, only, have we space and time to notice this week:—

“In Ezekiel there is an important vision, embracing a singularly striking and significant prediction: ‘And when those days are expired, it shall be that on the eighth day of the week, and so forward, the priest shall make your burnt offerings, . . . and I will accept you, saith the Lord.’ Eze. 43:27. The only supposable accomplishment of this vision is in the condition of the Christian church; while the only imaginable fulfilment of the foregoing prediction is the one found in the first day of the week, and in its Christian worship.”

It was with unfeigned surprise that we saw years ago an attempt made to force this prophecy into the service of a first-day Sabbath. It is with scarcely less surprise that we behold the wonderful addition which this writer has made to the quotation. The reader will doubtless be ready to inquire how many days there are in a week. We had always supposed there were but seven. Yet Mr. H. speaks of the eighth. Is that the last? or shall we go on to the tenth, as in the French revolution? And what is the name of this eighth day of the week?

But, candid reader, just turn to the prophecy itself, and you will find that our clerical friend has deliberately added the words “of the week” to the words of the prophet. The text says nothing about any day “of the week,” much less the “eighth day of the week.” If he had quoted the verse before, his application would have been entirely spoiled. Let us read it. Eze. 43:26: “Seven days shall they purge the altar and purify it; and they shall consecrate themselves.” How often? Every seventh day? No; but seven days continually, day by day. See verse 25. And then what? “And when these days are expired, it shall be that upon the eighth day, and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings upon the altar.” When did the count for these seven days commence? Was it with the Sabbath? There is nothing said about it. Then when would the eighth day be? On Sunday? There is no proof of it. And does it say every eighth day? If it does not, then where is your succession of Sabbaths? And if it does, how long are your weeks? But it says, on the eighth day, after the seven had ended, and so forward, that is, upon every day thereafter, just as the seven had been mentioned, the priests should make their offerings upon the altar. And the only imaginable fulfilment, forsooth, of this, is in the observance of every seventh day under the gospel as the Sabbath, provided only that it comes on the first day of the week!

That men should light upon such texts as this, and try to twist and torture them into the service of Sunday, is the heaviest blow they could strike against that institution; for it shows the desperate weakness of their cause, and the transparent folly of their efforts.

More next week.