A Puzzled Correspondent.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
FROM a gentleman in Medina, Ohio, who has read a few copies of the SIGNS, we have received a letter which contains objections that are common to so many, and which seems to indicate a spirit of kindness and candor on the part of the writer, so that we are constrained to print it entire. It reads as follows:— "DEAR BRETHREN: I have just received a copy of the SIGNS, and have read it with great pleasure and profit, though the journal is not new to me. Your views of the second advent, immortality through Christ, etc., all meet my views exactly. I do not understand the Sunday question, however, as you do. You seem to imply that if we begin on Sabbath, Dec. 5, 1884, and go back by sevens, we should arrive at the Sabbath which God gave to Moses; but as no sane man pretends to tell the year the law was given, of course we cannot tell where to stop, and hence all is guess-work. I am just as sure that to-day [Dec. 7] is the true Sabbath, as you can be that Dec. 5 was. "But even if we did know this, what then? I profess to be a Christian, and hence I care no more for what Moses commanded, than I do for what Mohammed commanded. Christ is the end of the law to every one that believeth. He who follows Christ does more honor to Moses and the law than he does who worships the law only. Christ elaborated every one of the commandments in the decalogue except regarding Sunday, or the 'Sabbath,' and of that he speaks as though it were more for us than we for that. "If infidels care nothing for Sunday, how can you make them respect Saturday? Why not change their hearts instead of their calendar?" "Yours in Christ, W. P. R." Our brother has got things sorely confused in his mind, but we will endeavor to set him straight in regard to them. In the first place, we shall inform him that since December 5 fell on Friday, we do not count from that date either backward or forward, to find the Sabbath. We are Christians, not Mohammedans. He says, "I am just as sure that to-day [Dec. 7, the date of his letter] is the true Sabbath, as you can be that December 5 was." Granted; but unless his confidence exceeds that, he will not be likely to do much homage to the Sunday. We can say for ourselves that we also are "just as sure" that Sunday, December 7, was the Sabbath as we are that Friday, December 5, was, and not one particle more so. There is just the same Bible authority for keeping Sunday that there is for keeping Friday, and that is—just none at all. Of one thing we are just as certain as it is possible to be of anything, and that is that if, beginning with any Sabbath (Saturday), we should count back by sevens, we should find that we have the same seventh-day Sabbath which God commanded the Jews to keep, and upon which he rested in the beginning. It is not at all necessary that we should know the exact age of the world, nor the exact year in which the law was given. The following points establish the matter beyond all controversy: 1. The Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the one upon which God rested at creation. See Ex. 20:8-11; Gen. 2:2, 3. 2. It was this same day that was kept in the time of Christ, and of which he declared himself Lord (Mark 2:28), for the women who followed Jesus to the sepulcher returned and rested the Sabbath day "according to the commandment." Luke 23:56. 3. It is not possible that the reckoning of days since that time could have been lost, for the Jews, who as a nation have kept the Sabbath quite strictly ever since the Babylonian captivity, were dispersed to every nation under the heavens, and there is not the slightest disagreement among them as to which day is the true Sabbath, no matter how widely separated they may be. Moreover, within a comparatively short time after the days of Christ, his professed followers adopted the day of the heathen festival of the sun,—the first day of the week,—professing to do it in honor of Christ's resurrection on the first day of41the week; now in whatever part of the world you go, you invariably find that the so-called 'Christian Sabbath' is the day following the Sabbath which the Jews observe. Thus we know that the day of the Sabbath has never been lost since the creation. On this point, Bishop E. O. Haven, of the M. E. Church, said:— 'There is no good reason for denying that the Jewish Sabbath is the true seventh day, reckoning from the creation of man, and that the Christian Sunday is the first day of the Hebrew week, or of the genuine week.'—Pillars of Truth, p. 89. And now that we know that we have the original seventh-day Sabbath, "what then?" Says our brother: "I profess to be a Christian, and hence I care no more for what Moses commanded than I do for what Mohammed commanded." Well, we profess to be Christians too, yet we care far more for Moses than we do for Mohammed, because "we know that God spake unto Moses" (see Num. 12:6-8; Deut. 34:10), and there is no evidence that God ever manifested himself in any way to Mohammed. Christ was the prophet whom the Lord was to raise up, like unto Moses (Deut. 18:18, 19; Acts 3:22-26); and he reproved the Jews because they did not really believe the words of Moses. Indeed Christ plainly says that they could not believe on him unless they first believed the words of Moses (John 5:46, 47); and therefore if our brother really cares no more for Moses than he does for Mohammed, he has the word of Christ for it that his profession of Christianity amounts to nothing; that without believing Moses he cannot be a Christian. We do not believe that he carefully considered what he was writing. But the Sabbath commandment does not rest on the authority of Moses. "And GOD spake all these words, saying, . . . Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work," etc. Ex. 20:1-11. "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone." Deut. 5:22. Certainly our brother cares something for what the Lord commanded, even if he has no regard for Moses. "Christ is the end of the law to every one that believeth." True; but must we therefore conclude that with every believer in Christ there must be an end of keeping the law? Let us try a case, and see if our brother will agree with us. I believe in Christ, therefore I will curse and swear, because Christ is the end of the law which says, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Again, because I believe in Christ, who is the end of the law, I will shoot the next man I meet, and take his watch and purse. "No, no," our friend will surely say, "that would not do; if you believe in Christ you must forsake sin." Exactly; so say the Scriptures: "He that saith he abideth in him [Christ] ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." 1 John 2:6. And he "did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." 1 Peter 2:22. Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4); so then if we profess to abide in Christ we must cease transgressing the law, or, in other words, we must keep the law. Now by what rule does our brother decide that, because Christ is the end of the law, we are at liberty to violate the fourth commandment, and are not at liberty to violate the third, sixth, or eighth? "Are not your ways unequal?" Is the follower of Christ at liberty to break the law in any particular? Listen to the words of Jesus himself: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least [of no account] in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven." Matt. 5:17-19. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven." Matt. 7:21. The follower of Christ is not free to break the law, although Christ is the end of the law. Then in what sense is he the end of it? In the sense that in the present state of the world Christ is the object of the law; i. e., the law, having no power of itself to make sinful men perfect, drives them to Christ, in whom they may attain all the perfection which the law requires. Paul clearly expresses the case in few words: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that [in order that] the righteousness [requirement] of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4. "He who follows Christ does more honor to Moses and the law than he does who worships the law only." Very true; for if any one "worships the law only," he will make a miserable failure; "without me," says Christ, "ye can do nothing." Christ's office is to enable us to do, as well as to cleanse us from past transgression. One cannot be a follower of Christ without keeping the law. "Christ elaborated every one of the commandments of the decalogue, except regarding Sunday." Very much mixed. Christ said nothing about the second commandment, and did not elaborate the eighth, ninth, nor tenth; yet we do not feel at liberty to slight them on that account. And he certainly did not elaborate the commandment regarding Sunday, because no such commandment was in existence until the rise of the "man of sin," many years after the time of Christ's earthly ministry. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Mark 2:27. These are the expressed, not implied, words of Christ. It was made for man's use. Now if our brother wishes to know just how God designs that man shall use the Sabbath, let him read the fourth commandment, and he will find out. God made the Sabbath for man to keep holy. Will our brother keep it so, and thus use the Sabbath as God intended it should be used? The paragraph concerning infidels and the Sabbath will be noticed in another article. E. J. W.