Privilege to What?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 10, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 35.

Privilege to What?

The following is one of the sophistries by which professed Christians seek to blind their fellows on the Sabbath question:—

The Jews were commanded to keep the Sabbath. The Christian is privileged to keep the first day. The Jew was compelled by law. The Christian is impelled by love.

But the Jew was not compelled to keep the Sabbath as commanded, for no manner of compulsion can make a man keep the Sabbath holy. The law is spiritual, and only he who is in the Spirit can keep it. The Christian is privileged, if he choose, to keep the first day, make the sign of the cross, and confess to a priest, and reap all the consequences which follow the errors. At the end of sin, however, lies death. Rom. 6:23; James 1:15. The gospel does not compel; it persuades; but it does not persuade us to do what God has not commanded, but what he has commanded. Says Jesus, "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." And he who is connected with Christ, he who has the Spirit of Christ, will be impelled by love, will esteem it a gracious privilege, to observe the Sabbath, as he will all the other commandments of God; "for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous." 1 John 5:3.