The Immutability of God’s Law
By J. K. Bellows
DEAR BRO. WHITE:—There has been no position in all my Christian experience for more than twenty years, in which I have taken so much comfort as in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath. It imparts joy and peace, and we feel the blessing of God resting upon us continually. It is strange to me that men can be so short-sighted as to argue that the Sabbath has been changed, and yet no change of the commandment; for it is certain that if our Lord had changed the Sabbath, he would have said something about the change of the commandment. But it remains the same. The law of God is as immutable as himself. His ten commandments ever have been, still are, and always will be binding upon all his children. Each dispensation has had certain laws by which God’s people have been governed, and all that kept the commandments of God, and obeyed the precepts peculiar to the dispensation in which they lived, have been accepted of him. Each of the seven dispensations have had laws peculiar to themselves, and when the dispensation passed, the law passed away with it. Hence, when the Mosaic dispensation passed, the Mosaic law, or the ceremonial law, or law of carnal commandments contained in ordinances, also, passed away; but the ten commandments are still the same. Now we are under the Gospel, and there are precepts to be observed, called in the third angel’s message the faith of Jesus, which are as binding upon us as the commandments of God. Let us then not only keep the commandments of God, but the faith of Jesus. And as the fourth commandment has been, and is still trodden down, and thus caused a breach or gap, let us stand in the gap and make up the breach by keeping the Sabbath according to the commandment. My prayer is, that God may give us grace and wisdom to do our duty in his fear. Yours in the patient waiting of the saints,
J. K. BELLOWS.
New York City, Aug. 22d, 1852.