FIFTY REASONS FOR SABBATH OBSERVANCE.
By D. T. Bourdeau
THIRTY-FOURTH. By faith in Jesus Christ, we observe it, not with the view of meriting salvation, but because we believe the Biblical doctrine that Jesus Christ came to save us “from” our sins and not in our sins, and that the grace or unmerited favor by which He saves us reigns “through righteousness” (Rom. 5:21), and not through sin, and is seen in our works, without which our faith would be a dead faith and could not save us. James 2:20. And such would be the character of our faith, if, knowing our duty with regard to the Sabbath, we refused to fulfil it. If we voluntarily transgressed even one of the precepts of the divine law, without showing a disposition to reform, none of our works would be acceptable unto God. In that case it would be in vain to count on the grace and mercy of God and lean on faith in Christ, and we would have no scriptural grounds to expect that the sacrifice of Christ would expiate our sins. Heb. 10:26. We would then be regarded by God as transgressors of the whole law (James 2:8-12); for none of our works would be the fruit of love to God and love to our neighbor; on the contrary all our works would be considered by Him “who searcheth the reins and the heart” as marred with selfishness and as infractions of the divine law. In such a case we would certainly be without one work that would be approved by the law of God or by the Gospel, and would have a faith without works—a dead faith that would have no salutary power in it. Thirty-fifth. We observe it because God wants the only law that existed in the time of Jeremiah that was to exist under the new covenant—the law of which the Sabbath forms a part—to be written in our hearts; and that signifies that He would have us observe that law, for one can not have a law written in his heart without loving and obeying it. In Jer. 31:33, God thus expresses the first promise of the new covenant, “I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” Thirty-sixth. We observe it, because the sons of the stranger (the Gentiles), and the eunuchs or servants, to whom the duty of observing the Sabbath would seem more difficult11than to others, are encouraged to keep the Sabbath when “salvation is near to come” (Isa. 56:1), or when our Lord is soon to return to our earth to raise the righteous dead (Isa. 25:9, 8; 1 Cor. 15:34). “Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from His people; neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep My Sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me, and take hold of My covenant; even unto them will I give in Mine house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.” Isa. 56:3-5. And the fact that, in the verses which follow, the Lord promises to accept the “burnt-offerings and sacrifices” of the sons of the stranger that keep the Sabbath is not against the application we make of this prophecy. Often terms are employed in the Bible which, tho’ of a character justifying their application to those who lived under the old, can, nevertheless, be taken in their original sense. Certainly the word “sacrifice” has a spiritual sense under the former dispensation as it has under the present. Proof: “So will we render the calves of our lips.” “That ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Rom. 12:1. “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5. Thirty-seventh. We observe it, because, having been made before sin entered into our world and when man was in his state of innocency, and there being ample evidence that it will exist in the new earth, where holiness shall reign (Isa. 66:22, 23), it is not one of those ordinances that were a shadow of a Saviour to come, and were abolished at the death of our Lord. Col. 2:14-17. Those ordinances said continually to man, Thou art a sinner, needing a Saviour who is to come. If the Sabbath had said this to our first parents, when they were in their state of innocency, it would have said that which was false, and its Author would have been guilty of falsehood. And this would be equally true of the Sabbath and its Author in the new earth. There will be no sinners in that beautiful world; no expectation of a coming Saviour. Thirty-eighth. We observe it, because it is honored and sanctioned by the plan of redemption. Redemption restores to holiness those who accept its plan; and holiness is conformity to the law of which sin is the transgression, and of which the Sabbath forms a part. 1 John 3:4; Ex. 19:5, 6; Deut. 4:12, 13, etc. One essential part of the work of redemption will be the restoration of our earth to its primitive state of glory; and by this very fact the sign of the first creation, the holy Sabbath, is honored and sanctioned. Therefore the Sabbath exists, and is obligatory during the entire period of redemption, and it will be thus during the endless period of the world to come,—when the work of redemption will have been accomplished, and every day—but especially each Sabbath—the redeemed will contemplate the character of God in His works, rendering homage and adoration to God and the Lamb. Isa. 66:22, 23; Rev. 5:13.