THE SABBATH A SIGN OF THE EVERLASTING COVENANT.
By G. E. Fifield
BUT the creation Sabbath is even more emphatically Christian than has yet been made clear. It is the sign of the everlasting covenant, by which covenant Christ in all ages has saved all who have put their trust in Him. In order that this may be made plain, we must first see clearly what that covenant is, and with whom it is made. When man sinned, he lost the power to keep from sinning. Life is the power to act. But sin is death, and death is the absence of all power. The sinner is the slave to sin. Sin is the master, and he the servant. It was thus through sin in the beginning that the race died spiritually, or lost the power to live in harmony with God's spiritual law. That it has no such power the Bible positively declares. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." Jer. 13:23. "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him." John 6:44. "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. Thus, left to themselves, mankind are hopelessly lost. But to all who realize this and long for salvation, the Lord says, If you will submit your wills to Me, and just as you are, drop into My everlasting arms, I, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, will make you perfect to do My will, working in you that which is well pleasing in My sight. God would have made this covenant with Israel, at the foot of Sinai, as soon as they learned their own helplessness, if they had grasped the promises by faith, and submitted their lives to Him. He did confirm this covenant with every individual who accepted Him, and yielded his life to His keeping. By this covenant, He wrought His ideals in David, taking him from the sheep-cote, and making him musician, poet, king, and type of the King of kings. And the Lord says: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Is. 55:1. "Incline your ear, and come unto Me, hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Is. 55:3. The thoughtless, wicked man is an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger to both the covenants of promise. See Eph. 2:11, 12. When the Spirit of God arrests his attention, and speaks His law to his soul, to convict him of sin, he first tries to make himself better. This is the first covenant, the covenant of works. The Lord lets him try until he finds how helpless and hopeless he is in himself. When he finds this out, and the hunger of the soul leads him to Christ, and causes him to accept Christ as a personal Saviour, then the Lord seals with him His everlasting, or new covenant, and to that man who thus enters this new experience, the old covenant is done away in Christ. He is no longer a stranger and an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, but a fellow citizen with the saints, and of the household of God. Eph. 2:19. Every one whose attention is arrested from the ways of sin by the Divine Spirit, and who yields himself to God, is an Israelite, all others are Gentiles. Paul declares that not to the literal seed, but to this spiritual Israel, pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the services of God, and the promises. See Rom. 9:4-8; Gal. 3:29. In the eleventh chapter of Romans, Paul teaches that by accepting Christ, the Gentile is grafted into the Israelitish stock, contrary to nature, so becoming an Israelite, and so all Israel, i. e., all the real Israel, the spiritual Israel, shall be saved. As we have seen, man can not save himself. In infinite love, God stoops over the battlements of heaven, holding down this everlasting covenant to every soul who will accept it. It is by His creative power, manifest through this covenant, and by this alone, that a soul can be saved, and made righteous. Hence, David prays, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." And Paul says, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works," and "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." But since God is no respecter of persons, since salvation is only by His creative power, why does He not save all men? It is because He cannot save us against our wills, for that would be to make us machines, and so destroy all character. He does create anew and save by that covenant all who submit their lives to Him. Dear reader, if you would be an Israelite, indeed, and be saved with all Israel at last, submit yourself wholly to God, accept this covenant by faith, and rejoice in the glorious fact that God has taken the contract to work out His divine ideal in your life; and in that He, seeing the end from the beginning, beholds you, even now in the glory of Christ's righteousness. So much for the covenant. Now for the original proposition that the Sabbath is the sign of this covenant. This is plainly stated in the Word. "Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you." Ex. 31:13. "Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever." Ex. 31:16, 17. No one will deny that the Lord is speaking here to the same Israel to whom He gave the law and the covenants, and the promises. But we have seen that Paul plainly and positively declares that this was not to the national Israel, but to all who accept Christ. That this also refers to the same perpetual or everlasting covenant, of which we have spoken, is evident; for there is but one perpetual, or everlasting, covenant, and through this, and through this only, men are saved and sanctified. The Sabbath is here declared to be the sign between God and the human soul, that God is performing this work of sanctification. On God's part, it is a sign of His creative power, by which He creates us anew, or sanctifies us. Both here and in the fourth commandment, and indeed throughout the Bible, the Sabbath is ever presented as a memorial of creation, and a sign of God's creative power. On our part, it is the sign of our soul's submission to Him, which permits Him to sanctify us. This is no theory, it is a fact. Many a man who cares nothing for God or religion would not outwardly, openly, lie, steal, kill or commit adultery. They could not do these things openly, and evade the law of the land, and live in good society. Many a man who cares nothing for God, would think it foolish and not in good taste to swear, bow down to idols, or openly proclaim himself a worshiper of another god. These commandments, therefore, do not outwardly mark the man, and distinguish between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not. But when a man conscientiously keeps the Sabbath as he understands it, he does this openly and purposely to recognize God's authority over his conscience, and to submit his soul to Him. Hence, it is a sign of the soul's submission to God. But the Lord says to every one who submits his soul to Him, "I will make with you My everlasting covenant, to sanctify you, and to make you perfect to do My will," by My creative power. Therefore, the Sabbath, which is a sign on God's part of His creative power, and on our part, of our submission to that power, is, as is plainly declared, a sign of that perpetual or everlasting covenant. But with whomsoever the Lord makes that covenant, He dwells as a living, sanctifying power. So, if we willingly submit ourselves to Him, and take up this His appointed sign of such submission, He says that it shall be to us a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord which doth sanctify you. God's infinite Word is set to receive all who submit their wills to Him. When the Gentiles took hold of God's covenant, they accepted the Sabbath as a sign of that covenant. God's Word in this was plain, and His promise precious. "Also the sons of the stranger [Gentile], that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant, even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer." Isa. 56:6, 7. This promise is good to-day. The only reason the observance of God's blessed Sabbath has not always been a true sign. He meant it to be, to distinguish between those who are His and those who are not, because of the great apostasy which brought the survival institution, the sun festival. Men's minds have been clouded and darkened by this apostasy, and many have sincerely accepted Christ as their Saviour, who have not seen the true relation of the Sabbath to that everlasting covenant of salvation. But, thank God, the truth that has been crushed to earth shall rise again. God's final church will be without spot or wrinkle. Pagan contaminations will be purged away by persecution, and the heart fully subdued to Christ by love, until "in their mouth will be found no guile." In this church, the true Sabbath will have been fully restored to its true place as the sign of the everlasting covenant. G. E. FIFIELD.