WHO IS EXALTED? by M. C. W.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 13, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 18.

WHO IS EXALTED?

By M. C. W.

THE Standard, a Baptist paper of Chicago, in referring to the Sunday-school lesson of January 13, “A Sabbath in the Life of Jesus,” remarks:—

“After all, does not the Sabbatarian unwittingly, but none the less effectively, exalt Moses at the expense of the Christ? The Lord’s day is God’s testimony in history to the greatness of the Christ.”

Does the Standard believe in keeping the first, or third, or fifth, or sixth commandment? It would doubtless reply, Yes. But in doing that do they not “unwittingly, but none the less effectively, exalt Moses at the expense of the Christ?” To this the Standard would render an emphatic negative. Then why, we ask, single out one commandment, one essential, constituent part of God’s law of ten words, and say that the keeping of that “exalts Moses at the expense of the Christ”? If the keeping of one of the words of the decalogue does this, the effect would be the same in keeping other parts of the same law. God classed the law of the seventh-day Sabbath with nine other immutable, moral precepts. Who has the right to tear it from thence? He who does this sits in judgment on the Lawgiver; like the priests of old, he is “partial in the law.” Mal. 2:9.

The second sentence quoted above is pure nonsense. The testimony which God has given to the power and greatness of Christ, is the regeneration of sinners, or the bringing of carnal hearts into perfect harmony with the law of God. In this new life of the Christian, the power of Christ is manifest. “Sin is the transgression of the law,” and salvation from sin is salvation from transgression. He, therefore, who truly keeps the commandments of God, who turns from transgression to obedience through the grace of Christ, thereby exalts Christ and his power. But he who turns from the commandments of God to another source, exalts that other source above God.

The seventh-day Sabbath originated with the great Jehovah. Jesus and his Father are One. He who exalts that commandment, thereby exalts Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, and also honors God. Sunday is a pagan institution. It has no support in the word of God. Those who honor Sunday do not exalt Christ, but the pago-papal tradition in which Sunday had birth. And all service and laudation in honor of that day is only will worship, of which the Lord can well inquire, “Who hath required this at your hand?” Is not the Standard seeking to draw attention from the weakness of its own position, by casting reflection on that of others?

M. C. W.