"CONDENSED" MORAL LAW by R. F. Cottrell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 7, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 26.

"CONDENSED" MORAL LAW.

By R. F. Cottrell

I ONCE heard a man complaining of some that say we must keep the commandments. Said he, Christ fulfilled those old commandments and we have nothing to do with them. I remarked that I understood that the ceremonial law of the former dispensation terminated at the death of Christ, but that the moral law remained in full force, and appealed to him if it were not so, specifying the code that says, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, and Thou shalt not steal. He replied that he believed that Christ did not abolish the moral law, but that he "condensed it down," so that if we do by others as we would that they should do by us, it is all that is required of us.

It would be really amusing were it not that men are trifling with the law of God and their own lives, to witness the many silly inventions and contemptuous quibblings by which they seek to evade the authority and force of the fourth commandment. They admit the force of the other nine precepts of the decalogue; hence all their efforts to modify this law have reference solely to the Sabbath. To get rid of this, one would have the law abolished, another relaxed, another amended, another expanded, and another condensed.

In Isa. 42:21 is a prophecy that is generally admitted to refer to Christ. It says, "He will magnify the law, and make it honorable." It would be difficult to understand how magnifying the law would make any less of it. Yet I have heard people say that Christ magnified the law, made it honorable, and abolished it. But it seems that all the change that has been made in the law, either by magnifying or condensing, affects only the fourth commandment, leaving the other nine precisely as they were before.

A certain minister who has formerly held that the Sabbath was abolished by Christ, has recently renounced that view, admitting that Christ confirmed or ratified every one of the ten commandments. And besides this he says that Christ magnified the law so that every day is the Sabbath. Thus he makes no difference between days and remains a no-Sabbath man still.

If men would be honest with themselves before God, they might easily see that the introduction of the new covenant affected the fourth commandment just as much as it did the other nine, and no more. But the ministers of these last days "have caused many to stumble at the law;" and God's word to them will soon be fulfilled, "Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law."

R. F. COTTRELL.