CHANGE OF THE LAW by Raymond Franklin Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1880

CHANGE OF THE LAW.

By Raymond Franklin Cottrell

For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. Heb. 7: 12.

The law here spoken of is the law of the priesthood existing before Christ, which confined it exclusively to the tribe of Levi. "Our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood;" he could not therefore be a priest by the law of Moses, but, by the oath of God, he was constituted a priest after another order, the order of Melchisedec. Therefore the text speaks of a necessity of a change of that law that would not allow any to exercise the office of the priesthood, unless they could trace their pedigree back to Levi.

But our no-Sabbath, and Sunday-Sabbath friends have felt a necessity, doubtless arising from their want of evidence to sustain their position, of making use of this text to prove that the moral law, the ten commandments, has been changed by the abolition, or change, of the fourth commandment.

Now as the Sabbath is not mentioned in the text or context, but only the law, how do they ascertain what change must necessarily take place in that law of which our Saviour said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law?" There is no text of Scripture which points to the Sabbath commandment as demanding abolition or change. Then if this text applies to one of the ten, it applies to all of them. According to the reasoning of our opponents, then, there is a necessity that the commandments, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, and, Thou shalt not covet, should be changed. And seeing the necessity of a change exists, and the Scriptures do not inform us what change is necessary, I suggest whether it would not please our friends best, who feel this necessity, to leave out the little word, not, in each of these precepts. This, so far as jots and tittles are concerned, is a smaller change than the abolition of the Sabbath, or its change to the first day of the week. Yet it would be quite an important change in the requirements of the law.

Would it not be better for our friends to find the scriptures that proves the abolition, or change, of the Sabbath, and not appeal to those texts that speak of the law in general terms? If these prove a necessity for the modification of the Sabbath commandment, they prove the same necessity for a change of every other precept of the entire law.

R. F. COTTRELL.