Honor Due to God by C. P. Bollman

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 1, 1915

Honor Due to God

By C. P. Bollman

Two Signs of Divine Sovereignty

GOD did not create this world, assign it an orbit, place man upon it, and then leave the earth to itself, and leave man to follow the inclinations of his own unrestrained and untutored will. God is not only the author of all things, but he is likewise the supreme ruler, "a great King over all the earth." Ps. 47: 2.

When the earth was called into being, the Lord set apart the seventh day as the memorial of his power to create. By keeping that day, man would be preserved from falling into idolatry, and would recognize God's sovereignty, especially as to time. Says the psalmist: "I trusted in thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand." Ps. 31: 14, 15.

It is true we are told that "the earth hath he given to the children of men;" but that this gift was not made in a way nor to such an extent as to make man independent of the Creator, is further evident from the fact that in the garden of Eden the Lord reserved to himself one tree, "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." By respecting this tree and the prohibition against partaking of its fruit, or even touching it, our first parents were to acknowledge God's ownership, not only of that particular tree, but of themselves and the earth. The principle is well illustrated by a bit of colonial history.

In Harper's "Encyclopedia of United States History," article "Baltimore," we find this statement concerning the grant of Maryland to Cecil Calvert: "Entire exemption from [Royal] taxation was conceded to the colonists." But "as an acknowledgment that the original title to the land was still in the possession of the crown, the proprietor was required to pay to the king the tribute of two Indian arrows" annually.

Intrinsically the two Indian arrows were of only infinitesimal value, but a mighty principle was involved. It was not a question of the value of the tribute, nor of the king's need of the arrows, nor of his ability to turn them to account, but was entirely a question of the recognition of the right of the crown to exact tribute at all. As long as the two arrows were paid annually to the king, his sovereignty was acknowledged; but as soon as such payment was withheld, either wantonly or through neglect, there was a denial of the sovereignty that exacted them.

In like manner when God's tree was violated, his sovereignty was challenged; but it was not surrendered. Man, the sinner, the rebel, was expelled from the garden, and was sent forth to till the ground whence he was taken. Naturally he carried with him the knowledge of the Sabbath; but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he could not take with him, except as a memory. Men could therefore no longer acknowledge God's continued ownership by refraining their hands from that tree. Therefore God gave them another means by which to show their loyalty to their Creator as proprietor; namely, the payment of a tithe of their increase.

As the tithe takes the place of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to withhold it is to deny God's right to exact it; in other words, to deny his sovereignty, just as to have withheld the two arrows would have been a denial of the sovereignty of the king of England by Lord Baltimore.

Primarily the tithe stands for God's ownership, and for his right to rule. It is not a question of God's need, nor of his ability to turn the tithe to account, but wholly of his right to require the payment of the tithe.

With the entrance of sin came the necessity of a system of sacrificial worship, and after men began to multiply, the further necessity of a ministry, or priesthood. But even when there was no priesthood of which we have any record, no ministry to be supported, there was, in some instances at least; a recognition of God's ownership by the payment or setting apart of the tithe as sacred to his service.

In Gen. 14: 18-20 we learn that Abraham paid tithes to "Melchizedek king of Salem," and "priest of the most high God," and this under peculiar and interesting circumstances. Abraham was returning from his rescue of Lot, laden with the spoils of war. Melchizedek met him, set forth bread and wine for his refreshment and the refreshment of those who were with him, and blessed him, saying: "Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand." And Abraham "gave him tithes of all."

This payment was not made because of Melchizedek's need, but because it was due to the God at whose altar he ministered. Here, then, was a most striking recognition of divine ownership, and of the Creator's abiding sovereignty.

At Bethel, apart from any priest or priesthood, so far as we know, "Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." Gen. 28: 20-22. How or to whom Jacob paid this tithe we are not told; but the fact remains that he recognized the obligation and pledged compliance therewith.

The book of Genesis is a very brief history of the earth for more than two thousand years. The surprising thing is not that it tells so little, but that it contains so much. We are told of God's rest at the close of the creation week, but no further mention is directly made of the Sabbath until we come to the fifth of Exodus. The frequent recurrence, however, of the number seven, and the mention of weeks of seven years, afford unmistakable evidence that the people of that day were familiar as well with the week of seven days.

We learn also that the first thing Moses did when God sent him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt was to call them back again to the Sabbath of their fathers, which their Egyptian taskmasters had not permitted them to observe. Thus we find Pharaoh complaining to Moses in Ex. 5: 5: "Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest [shabath] from their burdens." Literally Pharaoh charged Moses with having made the people to keep Sabbath. Young's Analytical Concordance defines shabath thus: "To cease, rest, keep Sabbath." Therefore what Moses did was to restore to the people the well-nigh forgotten Sabbath. A little later, when the law was given from Sinai and the tabernacle service was established, the

practice of devoting the tithe to the service of God in recognition of his sovereignty and of the further honor due to him as owner of all things, was also restored to the people.

Thus we see that these two signs of loyalty are very closely connected. The one is a memorial of Jehovah as Creator, the other an acknowledgment of his continued proprietorship; or, to use the phraseology of the historian as nearly as may be, we might say, the payment of the tithe is an acknowledgment that the original title to the earth is still in possession of the Crown of the universe, and that man holds it only as a tenant at will.

In the law given at Sinai we find embosomed the words, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." The Lord speaking through the prophet in the fifty-eighth of Isaiah, styles the Sabbath, "My holy day." In Eze. 20: 12 he declared the Sabbath to be the sign of his sanctifying or creative power; and again in verse 20 he sets it forth as the sign that he is God; in other words, it is the symbol of his right to rule as Creator; and those who keep it thereby acknowledge him and march under his banner.

Coming to the New Testament, we find the Saviour declaring himself "Lord also of the Sabbath day." Mark 2: 28. And in Rev. 1: 10, John, speaking by inspiration, tells us that he "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," which could be none other than the "Sabbath of the Lord." Thus the Sabbath runs not only all through the Old Testament, but in like manner all through the New Testament. And whether in the Old or in the New, it is the badge, or sign, of creative power; for, as the apostle says in 2 Cor. 4: 6, the same God "who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

In like manner, when the Creator restored to his people whom he had led out of Egypt, the original forms of divine worship given after the fall to our first parents at the gate of the garden of Eden, he connected with that worship the payment of the tithe as at once a recognition of his proprietorship, and a means of sustaining the priests, his ministers; hence the solemn and sweeping declaration: "All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the Lord." Lev. 27: 30.

True, the law of the tithe is not one of the original "ten words" spoken from Sinai; but, as we learn from Mal. 3: 8, it is of moral obligation, since to withhold the tithe is robbery, and that not of man, but of God.

As the Sabbath was brought over into the New Testament, not as something either new or reenacted, but as a well-known moral institution, accepted as a matter of course, so we find tithing also brought over and made a part of the gospel system.

Speaking of the practice of the scribes and Pharisees in tithing common garden herbs, "mint and anise and cummin," while neglecting "judgment, mercy, and faith," our Lord said, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." Matt. 23: 23. In paying tithe even upon these small things, they were doing no more than their duty, discharging a moral obligation in giving to God his own; but faithfulness in this was no excuse for the neglect of still weightier matters.

In connection with the church at Jerusalem we find no mention of tithe paying, since the believers there gave not only a tithe, but after giving themselves they gave all that they had to the Lord; and this was true to quite an extent of many other of the earlier congregations of Christians.

But in 1 Cor. 9: 7-14, we find the apostle Paul discussing this very question; namely, the support of the gospel minister; and after showing the reasonableness of the arrangement, he says: "Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple [that is, of the tithe]? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel."

"Even so" means in the same way. As during the Jewish age the priests of the Levitical system lived from the tithe which their brethren paid into the temple treasury, so the gospel ministers in the Christian dispensation are to live from the tithe which their brethren pay into the Lord's treasury.

But perhaps the plainest, most pointed scripture, at once inculcating the duty and emphasizing the privilege of honoring God by the payment of the tithe in the Christian dispensation, is the third chapter of Malachi. This chapter is, as all readily admit, a prophecy, not of the Levitical but of the Christian system. It opens with a reference to the message of John the Baptist, and closes with the work of the investigative judgment, which, as the reader knows, determines who from among both the dead and the living shall be changed to immortality and be caught up to meet the Lord in the air at his second coming.

Between the first and last verses of this chapter we have the work of Christ himself in his three years and a half of earthly ministry, and the call to repentance preached first by John, then by our Lord himself, and finally by his ministers from the sending forth of the seventy down until the last gospel invitation shall be given.

Though this scripture is phrased in the language of the Old Testament, speaking of "Judah," of "Levi," of "Jerusalem," and of "Jacob," we know that "he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart;" for "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Rom. 2: 28, 29; Gal. 3: 29.

Except for the work of John, the scene of this third of Malachi is laid in the new dispensation, and the repentance called for is in view of the second coming of the Lord and the final judgment. Yet one of the chief sins charged against God's people, and of which they are to repent, is withholding the Lord's tithe: "Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. . . . Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, . . . and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Mal. 3: 7-10.

Following the text just quoted is an enumeration of the promised blessings and a summary of the weak defense made by some, of their wrong course in withholding tithes and offerings from the Lord's treasury. Then comes the gathering of God's people in preparation for the last great crisis; God's acceptance of their worship, and the coming of the Lord to make up his jewels. A most precious chapter, filled with most precious promises and leading up to the grand consummation of the Christian's hope!

May both reader and writer be among those who shall at last hear the welcome words, "Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." But can we hope ever to hear this welcome plaudit if we refuse or even neglect to render to God the honor due to him both as Creator and as proprietor of all things?

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Luke 16: 10-13.