FIFTY REASONS FOR SABBATH OBSERVANCE.
By Daniel T. Bourdeau
TWENTY-SECOND. We should observe it, because it is the only weekly Sabbath enjoined by the Bible, and to pretend that it is not obligatory would be claiming virtually that there is no day of rest provided by God for those living under the new covenant. To those who set forth such a claim, we should ask: Is that one of the advantages of the new covenant over the old? Never put the Bible in contradiction with itself by quoting these words of Paul: "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" (Rom. 14:5), to prove such a doctrine. Here the word "alike" is in italics, and is not found in the original. Paul alludes to ordinances and days enjoined by the ritual law; and in this case the expression "every day" does not embrace the Sabbath any more than these words of the Lord relative to the manna: "And the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day." There was no manna to be gathered on the Sabbath, which was not therefore embraced in the expression "every day." The Sabbath is always an exception, and is never embraced in such expressions, which are limited in their meaning as is the word "all" in these Biblical declarations: "Charity . . . believeth all things." 1 Cor. 13:1-7. "All things are lawful for me." 1 Cor. 10:23. "One believeth that he may eat all things." Rom. 14:2. Twenty-third. We observe it, because the Gospel, having a restoring system, or remedy for sin, as well as the good news of salvation, sanctions it with the rest of the law by which "is the knowledge of sin," and of which "sin is the transgression." Rom. 3:20; 1 John 3:4. The Gospel commands us to repent; we are to repent of our sins or transgressions of the law. It commands us to believe in Jesus Christ to obtain the remission of our sins (transgressions of the law), and that the righteousness of Christ (His obedience to the divine law) may be imputed to us, and replace our disobedience, which never should have appeared, and never should appear in our lives. The Gospel commands us to pray, and one of our petitions in prayer is that God may pardon our sins. Another is that He may enable us to overcome our sins. In these two cases the law, of which the Sabbath is a part, is honored, and the importance of obeying it is clearly seen. The same is true when we ask God to give us His Spirit, whose great work consists in changing our hearts and dispositions, putting them in harmony with the divine law, and causing to appear in us the fruits of the Spirit, namely, the dispositions or virtues that are developed in obeying the divine law. See 1 John 5:3; Ps. 119:24, 72, 92, 165; Gal. 5:22, 23. The Gospel commands us to be baptized to show, among other things, that we are dead to sin, to the transgression of the law. Rom. 6:1-12, etc. It enjoins the celebration of the Lord’s death for our sins (1 Cor. 11:26; 15:5); and every time we do this properly we ask God, in the name of our Saviour, to forgive us our sins, or infractions of the law, and to enable us to live holily, or conformably to the law of God.