A BAPTIST AGAINST THE LAW OF GOD.
By G.
IN laboring to reply to our tract, "An Appeal to Baptists," and in striving to wrest the Scriptures into a support of Sunday observance, a writer in the Pacific Baptist gets wofully entangled. Here is his first deception: We find in Gen. 2:1-4 that when God had in six days finished the creation, He rested on the seventh day, blessed and sanctified it. But for two thousand five hundred years He commanded no man to keep (hallow) it. Not until we get to Exodus, twentieth chapter, do we find such a command. Here it is admitted that the Sabbath was made in the beginning, and Christ, the Maker, says it was "made for man." Hardly any one would have the temerity to assume that by this expression Christ meant that it was made for only one man; hardly any one would assume that in order to keep the sanctification alive it would be necessary to repeat it personally to every man who came into the world; hardly any one would assume that any law, human or divine, must needs be re-enacted for those who are born after its promulgation in order to make it binding upon them. Yet all this incongruous assumption is implied in the argument above quoted. Law always holds until it is repealed, or expires by limitation, tho many generations be born and pass away in the meantime. It seems indeed strange that otherwise intelligent people should be apparently oblivious of that common principle. But the fact that it is so probably accounts for the oversight of Exodus 16 in the long leap from Genesis 2 to Exodus 20. In Exodus 16 we have the account of Moses' reminding the Israelites that the following day was the Sabbath; that the seventh day was the Sabbath, "the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." This was not a new commandment, but a reminder of an old commandment, which they had long been neglecting, and the occurrence was some weeks before the arrival at Sinai, where the whole law was repeated to the people with great solemnity and manifestation of divine majesty. It is also of importance to note that in the giving of the manna, at the camp where the long-neglected Sabbath law was recalled to the attention of the people, there were instituted three weekly miracles to guard against further desecration of the day during their journey through the wilderness. Let it not be forgotten that this reference to the recognized Sabbath law, and provision against its further desecration by God's people, was before the arrival at Sinai. As there is no record of a repeal of the original Sabbath law, which "was made for man," but there is record that Abraham kept the commandments and laws of God (Gen. 26:5), the continuance of the Sabbath law from Eden to Sinai can not be refuted with any show of reason. The inconsistency of the argument that for two thousand five hundred years God commanded no man to keep the Sabbath, is emphasized in that those who adduce that plea insist on the obligation of Sunday observance, for which the Scriptures do not show even an initial command of the Lord, much less any repetition in the nearly two thousand years that is claimed for its prerogative of observance. But the very last argument that one would expect to find in a Baptist journal is this: Man was left to his own conscience during that period of time, hence sin was not imputed to him. Rom. 5:13. The period here referred to is the time between the sanctification of the Sabbath in Eden and the repeating of the law on Sinai. Men are always left to their own consciences; God compels no man's conscience; but His Word is given as a guide to conscience. When men depart from the Word it is because they have not a "good conscience toward God." Man being a free moral agent, his conscience, confronted by the testimony of the Spirit, must ever decide whether he will obey God or not. Conscience is ever either accusing or excusing the disobedience of God's law. But, we would ask, If God did not impute sin to the people during that long period, why did death reign from Adam to Moses? Rom. 5:14. Death is the wages of sin. Rom. 6:23. If sin was not imputed to the people during that long period, why their general destruction by a deluge of water? The Word says it was because "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." If sin was not imputed to the people before Israel came to Sinai, why were Sodom and the cities of the plain destroyed by fire and brimstone, "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire"? The Lord said it was "because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is great, and because their sin is very grievous." Gen. 18:20. And Jude testifies that it was because they had given "themselves over to fornication." Verse 7. So we see that sin was imputed to the people back there; therefore the law was in force, for "sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. And the particular law of which the transgression is sin, is designated to be the Ten-Commandment law. Paul says, "I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." Rom. 7:7. And James tells us that to offend in one point is to be guilty of all. James 2:10. Another great mistake made in the argument in the Baptist is in confounding the Sabbath of the Lord, instituted in Eden, with the ceremonial sabbaths of the Levitical economy. The weekly seventh-day Sabbath was set apart for man before sin entered, when as yet there were no typical institutions, nor any occasion for them. When the Lord gave commandment concerning the typical sabbaths (Leviticus 23), after enumerating various feasts and sabbaths, He said these were beside the "Sabbath of the Lord" (verses 3, 8, 38). Therefore it could not be classed with them. The argument that sin was not imputed during the pre-Mosaic period is completely stultified by the assumption that the law was suspended at the Cross, and will be again in operation during the Millennium. Here is the claim in the author's own words: Just as the game law is suspended during certain seasons of the year, God's law is not set aside forever, but is suspended during "this dispensation of grace" while Israel is scattered and the church, the heavenly "body of Christ," is being gathered out from among the nations. Acts 15:14.
Law will be in force again during the millennial kingdom with Israel restored as a nation. See Rom. 11:25-27. A suspended law is as inoperative as a repealed law. Therefore, according to the logic of this Baptist, sin has not been imputed to the people since the Crucifixion. Then why preach the Gospel? If there is no law in force, there is no sin; then what need of the Gospel? According to this no-law theory, the "dispensation of grace" amounts merely to a period of license—sin is not imputed to anybody, because there is no law to violate. But if the working of God's "holy," "perfect," "just," and "good" law, which is established by faith (Rom. 3:31), was such a burden to the people that Christ gave His life to get it out of the way, wherein will lie the blessing of having it restored "during the millennium kingdom"? This Baptist effort to make void the law of God is simply another testimony that all such effort is sheer perversion of the Word. It sets the Gospel of Christ against the immutable law which He sacrificed His life to vindicate—to which He was obedient, even unto death. "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." 1 John 2:6. When the wrath of God is poured out on the earth, without mixture, there will be seen unscathed the company of them "that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:6-12.