p. 502 | IS IT REASONABLE? by C. P. B.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 32.

IS IT REASONABLE?

By C. P. B.

A COMMON objection to the observance of the Bible Sabbath is that the keeping of it is an effort to secure justification by works, and that it is therefore opposed to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which teaches that the sinner can be justified only by faith. The objection if true would be a serious one. One thing however makes us suspicious of this objection at the very outset, namely, that those who urge it are almost invariably observers of the first day of the week, the so-called Lord's day. The question which naturally arises is this: Why is not the keeping of Sunday just as much an effort to obtain salvation by works as is the keeping of the day specified in the fourth commandment?

If honest, the Sunday-keeper observes the day because he thinks that it is a duty which he owes to God; the observer of the seventh day keeps it because an explicit commandment bids him do it. Why is the act of the latter any more a denial of Christ than the act of the former? It cannot be, nor as much, for the latter has a divine warrant for keeping the seventh day while the former has none.

But again: Why should the keeping of the fourth commandment be any more a denial of Christ and an effort to obtain justification by works than is the keeping of any other precept of the decalogue? All who are at all worthy of the name of Christians teach in one way or another the necessity of obedience to the moral law; then why except the fourth commandment? There is and can be no reason for it other than an unwillingness to obey it.

Christ died not only that men might be saved, but that they might be changed and brought into harmony with the law of God. Says the apostle: "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 the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4. The law could not make men righteous, for they had all broken it, but Christ could and does make righteous those who believe in him, by imputing to them his own perfect righteousness, but this he does not that they may continue in sin, but that they may turn away from sin. Says the apostle: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Rom. 6:1, 2. Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), and according to the text just quoted from Romans, the Christian cannot live in transgression; he must therefore live in obedience.

Again, the Spirit of God tells us by the apostle that "the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then," the apostle says, "they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But," he adds, "ye are not in the flesh [that is, not carnally minded], but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Rom. 8:7-9. How any man can read this and still contend that it is not a Christian duty to keep the law of God, can be accounted for only on the supposition that he is still dominated by the carnal mind, which is enmity against that law. C. P. B.