p. 354 | OBSERVING TIMES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 9, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 23.

OBSERVING TIMES.

THE apostle Paul wrote to the church at Galatia: "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." Gal. 4:10, 11. In this very observance the apostle saw evidences of backsliding from God and serious cause of alarm. These outward actions showed that the heart was no longer perfect toward God. What were these times observed by these Galatians?

1. They evidently were not Jewish festivals which God had appointed, but the observance of which had expired by limitation; for these the apostle had elsewhere intimated were to a great extent a matter of indifference. This is stated in Rom. 14:5, 6: "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it." This seems to refer to practices connected with the eating of herbs and meats. Brother was not to judge brother. The same principle is expressed in Col. 2:16, 17: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day [feast day], or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." This pertains to the same observances, which expired as obligatory at the cross, when the shadow reached the substance. The sabbaths were yearly sabbaths, of which there were several. See Leviticus 23. Would the apostle condemn and regard as dangerous in Gal. 4:10 what he places so little stress upon in the other scriptures?

2. The observance of the Galatians did not pertain to the weekly Sabbath of the Bible. God gave that for all people and all time. It was "made for man." It was embodied in the holy and immutable law of God. Ex. 20:1-17. That law Jesus said he did not come to change, and declared that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail. See Matt. 5:17-20; Luke 16:17. The apostle Paul declares that faith in Christ not only does not abolish God's law, but establishes it in the heart. Rom. 3:31. Neither can the expression "every day" of Rom. 14:5 be said to necessarily include the Sabbath, for precisely the same expression is used in Ex. 16:4, where only six days of the week are intended. Certainly the apostle would not be afraid of that religion which led to a faithful observance of just what God had commanded. "Ye are my friends," said Christ, "if ye do whatsoever I have commanded you."

3. What these observances of the Galatians were we may learn from the verses preceding those we quoted at the beginning of this article. Says the apostle: "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" Gal. 4:8, 9.

The Galatians, or at least many of them, were converted idolators. They were saved from the "service" of "them which were no gods," but in their backslidden condition they had turned again to the bondage from which the power of Christ had delivered them. In other words, they had gone back to the observance of the times of the heathen, which God had before forbidden: "Neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times." Lev. 19:26. It is said of Manasseh, the wicked king of Judah, that among other things which he did when he forsook the God of his fathers was that he "observed times." These times were the days dedicated to the feasts and worship of their gods. It was therefore no wonder that the apostle feared for them.

The church of to-day is trending in the same direction. For the observance of Christmas, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, and Sunday there is absolutely no authority in the Scriptures. They are wholly of men. They may be traced back to pagan and idolatrous customs. This is especially true of Christmas, Easter, and Sunday. And yet the great Protestant churches of Christendom, whose boast has been "the Bible and the Bible alone," is not only continuing to observe Sunday, in the face of constantly increasing light, when to do it makes void a command of God, but in the observance of the other feasts they are coming to outdo Rome. Ornate services, appeals to the senses, are the order of the day. As the living, constant witness, designed of God to abide forever in the church, is silenced by sin and selfishness, human devices are invented to attempt to fill up the vacancy. God's witnesses to the power of the resurrection are the lives of regenerated human beings, not on Sundays, not on dress-parade days, but on every day, in all the transactions of life. Every attempt to improve upon God's plan has resulted in failure, and weakness to the church; and to keep up these observances the church has been compelled to use force and appeal to the civil power. Oh, that our brethren in all these denominations might turn from tradition to God's holy word, from "the weak and beggarly elements" of paganism and sin, whereby the light of God is obscured, to the truth as it is in Christ Jesus.