p. 451 | OBEYING BY DISOBEYING by W. N. Glenn

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 29, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 29.

OBEYING BY DISOBEYING.

By W. N. Glenn

THE Burlington, Vermont, Independent acknowledges an increasing interest in the Sunday movement, because of its growing popularity, and scores the Seventh-day Adventists for weakening the work. It says they are "a very zealous and apparently well-meaning people, but in this respect working against the spirit of the command to remember and keep holy the Sabbath-day." Anything logical in the way of criticism could hardly be expected in a journal whose principles are confessedly based on popular clamor; so it is not surprising to find in it the self-contradictory idea of violating the spirit of a commandment by obeying its letter.

The idea that God would make a certain specified day holy, and command us to keep it holy, and then expect us to obey the spirit of the commandment by observing another day, is almost too childish for serious consideration. In the first place, man cannot make a day holy, and of course cannot keep one holy that has not been made so by some competent authority. God alone can make anything holy, and there is no record that he ever made any day holy but the seventh. Nor is there any record that he ever removed from that day the sanctity that he placed upon it in the beginning. Therefore, when either the church or the State commands us to keep holy any other day than the seventh, it commands an impossibility. And when either the church or the State assumes to make a day holy, it assumes the prerogative of God, and is guilty of blasphemy.

The idea of obeying a law by doing something else than is verbally specified in the law, would not work very well in any human affairs, and God's commands are of no less importance. There is not a department in all the realm of human activity where such a precedent would not prove disastrous. If the editor of the Independent should doubt this, suppose the employees of his office try the experiment for a week, that he may see the fallacy of his argument. Or if that fail to convince him, let his family, if he has one, carry out the spirit of his requests by obedience on the principle of his Sabbath-keeping theory. Or if he is used to that kind of discipline at home, and is satisfied with it, let him suggest it to the school authorities of Burlington, and if he can, get them to give it a trial.

What can express or indicate the spirit of a commandment but the language of the commandment? What else can give an idea of what is required, than the letter of the requirement? If the letter does not express what is designed in a law, what is the letter for? In the government of God, implicit, unqualified obedience is the first principle. Everything in the universe obeys him "by whom all things consist," except the carnal mind; that alone is enmity against God. That only seeks to evade the known duty to the Creator; and that alone is unwilling to accept the plain word as the unerring indicator of his will.

But let us try this Burlington editor's principle of obedience on the Sunday movement. It ought to work both ways if it is a good rule. It ought to be as applicable to a first-day law as to the commandment for

keeping the seventh day. If the principle is worth a farthing it will fit a human Sunday law as well as the divine Sabbath commandment. Will the Sunday-law advocates concede that keeping Saturday or Monday would satisfy the spirit of their law? In those States where they have Sunday laws without exemption, do they admit that one who has conscientiously rested and attended church the day previous has obeyed the spirit of their so-called Sabbath law? The records of fines and imprisonments in those States answer, No.

When the Creator instituted the Sabbath he had a purpose, and that purpose was to commemorate the great work of creation, as a constant reminder that he who created the heavens and the earth was the true God. He set apart and hallowed the seventh day for that purpose, and himself rested upon it. That the spirit of obedience to that command consisted in the actual observance of the letter was demonstrated over and over again in the wilderness. That he requires literal obedience to his commands, is amply illustrated in the case of Saul when commanded to utterly destroy the Amalekites and all that they had. He essayed to obey his idea of the spirit of the command, instead of the plain letter, and for manifesting such a spirit was rejected by the Lord; the kingdom was taken away from him, and the Lord finally refused to have anything whatever to do with him.

But men in these last days are growing more and more presumptuous. They not only ignore the commandment of God, but they set up a rival institution, and seek laws to compel men to recognize their usurpations. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccl. 8:11. W. N. GLENN.