WHO ARE BLINDED BY THE VAIL?
IN a recent number of the Pacific Christian is an article on "The Bible versus Sabbatarianism," which we are requested to notice. Really it is not worth while, for it presents no reasons against the law of God which have not been answered scores of times. However, as the main argument is based on an evident misunderstanding on the part of the writer of 2 Corinthians 3, we will notice what he says relating to that:— The thing that remains after the ministration of death written on stones, the old covenant, was abolished, is the ministration of the spirit, or principles of moral righteousness without the use of the statutes of the Decalog. The New Testament is essentially an institution of moral principles. It has but three purely statutory laws in it,—the Lord's supper, Christian baptism, by command, and the Lord's day, by apostolic example. When the Lord said, "I will put my laws in their mind, and write them in their hearts" (Heb. 8:10), he taught that the principles of moral right would not stand on a statutory basis in the new, as they did in the old dispensation. How there can be three purely statutory laws, one of which is by "apostolic example," would puzzle even a sophist to explain. Of course there is no law for Sunday observance in the Scriptures. Neither is there apostolic example; for there is the fact of but one religious meeting on the first day of the week in all the record of the apostles, and that an incidental meeting, on the evening of a day the greater part of which was spent in manual labor. God's law has never stood among his people on a mere statutory basis. When the law has not been written in the heart of his people it has not stood with them. The only thing that will establish the law, or ever has established the law, among any people, is faith. "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." Rom. 3:31. The only thing that established the law in the hearts of Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, and Daniel was faith in God's statutes. So also with Jesus Christ and his apostles. The only faith that profits is the "faith that worketh by love" (Gal. 5:6), and "this is the love of God that we keep his commandments" (1 John 5:3); and how shall we know what he has commanded but by the commandments themselves? Faith by the power of the Spirit writes the principles of righteousness, God's statutory righteousness, in the heart. He who ignores God's statutes has no witness of his righteousness by faith. See Rom. 3:21, 22. He despises the Word of God. Why?—Let Rom. 8:7 answer: "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Jesus said, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." Again we read in the same article:— In verse 13 of this third chapter of 2 Corinthians the apostle explains the meaning of the placing of the vail over Moses' face, teaching that the vailing of his face symbolized that Israel would fail to see that the glory of the ministration of death written on the stones which he had in his hands, would come to an end. He farther says, to this day (when this Second Letter was written to the Corinthians), "the vail is still upon their minds and heart." Nevertheless, when it, the heart, turns to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. The same vail is on the minds and hearts of all Sabbatarians even to this day of our Lord, 1897. When will it be taken off, that they may stand before the Lord with unveiled face, seeing clearly that the ministration of death written and engraved in stones is done away? Moses took the vail off his face when he went into the holy place of the tabernacle to minister before the Lord, typifying thereby that Christians, under the new covenant, would minister before the Lord without the vail on their minds and hearts; that is, they would not be blind to the fact that the old covenant, the ministration of death written, and engraved on stones, was abrogated. "But we all with open or unveiled face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Verse 18. That which remains is more glorious than that which is done away. "For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." Now the glorious thing was "the ministration of death written and engraven in stone." 2 Cor. 3:7. God's law was ministered to the Israelites when it came to them; spoken by the voice of God, or written on the tables of stone, it came in exceeding glory. But to the unbelieving, that glory only condemned them. The giving of the law was to them "the ministration of condemnation." Verse 9. They said to Moses, "Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us lest we die." Ex. 20:19. Not receiving God's voice brought condemnation and death. See also Deut. 5:25-28. But how was it with Moses? He lays his own heart open before God, receives God's law by faith in a living Redeemer, and the glory of condemnation and death is abolished in him by the power and indwelling presence of God, so much so that his face shone by the glory of the righteousness within. But Moses could not give that righteousness of faith to Israel. He could only give them the law as spoken of God, as written on tables of stone. But Israel instead of receiving that law from God as did Moses would not listen to the words of life; and even its glory by grace, shining in the face of Moses, condemned them. God wanted them to take his righteousness, his law, in their hearts by faith even as did Moses. He says, "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep my commandments always." Deut. 5:29. But they saw only the glory of condemnation and death, which the Lord longed should be done away in the greater glory of justification and regeneration, even as the light of the moon is abolished by the light of the sun. The same glory condemned them when Moses came down from the mount. Their unbelieving, sinful hearts could not look upon the glory of God's righteousness as it shone from Moses' face. Instead of looking beyond that to the God who had declared himself in that very law a merciful God, their unbelief asked that that glory should be vailed, hidden from them. That vail over Moses' face represented their unbelief. Compare 2 Cor. 3:14 with 4:4. But Moses saw beyond the outward glory to the inward character of God. Instead of pleading as did Israel, "Let not God speak with us, lest we die," the humble servant of God, with a heart emptied of selfishness, pleads in holy boldness, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory," and God answers the prayer, "I will make all my goodness pass before thee" (Ex. 33:18, 19), and then revealed himself to Moses as "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving5iniquity, transgression and sin" (Ex. 34:6, 7). The Lord showed Moses his glory by placing it in his heart. And it was the forthshining of this glory from within that the unbelief of Israel desired should be vailed. Ex. 34:29-35. It condemned them because of their unbelief. It is just as true with every Sabbatarian today, and every one else who attempts to keep the Sabbath in the letter alone, and who will not receive the law into his heart and life by Jesus Christ. Such an one gets it only through Moses. "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." John 1:17. It was in Christ that Moses himself obtained the glory, just where he obtained the law coming from God to him; it was grace and truth, righteousness and life, by faith. The law was "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Rom. 8:2. But, refusing to hear God speak, and receiving it only from Moses, the children of Israel were condemned. The ministration of God's Word to them, through man, they receiving it as from man, hid from them God's glory. By their own unbelief, they could not see beyond the glory of condemnation to the glory of justification. When in unbelief they hid from their eyes the lesser glory which condemned self to death, they could not behold and receive the greater glory which brought righteousness and life. And so it is with every one who may profess to keep that whole law. He must take it as from God in Jesus Christ, by faith. If he shuts out the heart-righteousness by unbelief, truly the vail is upon the heart. But if he looks beyond man to God as manifest in Jesus Christ, he will find the law indeed to be grace and truth. So Moses, and Samuel, and David, and Elijah, and Isaiah, and Daniel, and all the faithful of old, and Jesus Christ and his apostles, found it. The vailed professors of religion in these days are those who will not hear God speak through his law. Of them the prophet speaks: "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the latter day; that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord; which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits; get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us." See Isa. 30:8-13, margin. It is the old cry which we now hear from them which would abolish God's law to-day. They would not only vail their own faces, but would spread a vail over the nations, and hide from the people God's glorious righteousness in Jesus Christ, to which and of which his holy law is a blessed and eternal witness. But there is coming a time when God will speak, when every case will come before him in judgment, when "the heavens shall declare his righteousness; for God is judge himself," when his holy, unchangeable law, kept by Jesus Christ, by whose obedience we are justified, will both condemn its transgressors, who have rejected it, and acquit those in whose hearts it is written, in whose lives it is practised; when all will be undeceived forevermore, some to meet the inevitable result of chosen sin,—the second death,—some to enter into the everlasting kingdom of God, where against his law and Sabbath no hand shall be raised, no tongue shall speak. "And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations." Isa. 25:7. Before it shall be too late God asks us to "consider this." Ps. 50:16-22. Reader, are not the Word of God and the example of Jesus Christ sufficient? X.