FIGHTING AGAINST GOD by R. F. C.

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 19, 1857

FIGHTING AGAINST GOD.

By R. F. C.

It is an awful thing to be found fighting against God. And in no way can we more fully manifest our hostility against him, than by opposing the holy, just, and good law which he has given us. But open hostility and contempt of his law involves nothing like the awful responsibility of insidiously opposing it under the profession of friendship. The man who openly violates the law of God, setting it at defiance, throws away his own life; but he can have no influence to ensnare those who are disposed to be obedient. On the contrary, they shudder at his bold iniquity, and shun his example.

But an awful responsibility rests upon the man, who, professing to be a friend of God and a teacher of those who would know the way to his kingdom, and yet would subvert his law by teaching that it has been abolished or changed. Such men shut the kingdom of heaven against men; they neither go in themselves, and those who would, they hinder. Hence the solemn warning of our Saviour against breaking the Commandments, and teaching men so. Matt. v, 19.

He was certainly speaking of a law already known, and published in the Hebrew language; and he as certainly teaches the perpetuity of every jot and tittle of that law in all coming time, down to the passing of the heavens and earth, and the coming of the kingdom of heaven. And he makes the teaching and observance of that same pre-existing law a necessary qualification for entering into that kingdom. Verses 17-20.

Yet men professing to be the servants of Christ, and to be looking for the kingdom promised to the faithful and obedient, can close their eyes to such plain, positive and unequivocal testimonies of the Son of God, and teach men that God's law has been abolished or changed! And why? Because, that in consequence of the great apostasy, they find themselves observing a law which conflicts with the law of God, and which was invented by the Devil to drown men in perdition. And to make void the law of God, and to establish that of the Man of Sin, behold their numberless turnings and twistings!

If Paul's spirit was stirred within him, when he saw the city of Athens wholly given to idolatry, what would be his feelings, could he now see the professed Christian world, and witness their multifarious and discordant inventions to abolish, alter, and evade that holy, just, good and spiritual law which he, the Apostle to the Gentiles, declared was not made void, but was established by the faith of the gospel? How would he regard their wresting of his words, in other parts of his writings, to prove that what he said of the law in his epistle to the Romans, was false?

I have been led to these reflections by some articles in the Advent Herald of Jan. 17th, 1857. I give some extracts:

"Again Paul declares, [Heb. vii, 12.] The priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change in the law.' Now he does not say all the law was abolished or done away, but changed. Now what does the word changed mean? I answer, to alter or revise over. Do we find it so? Let Paul tell what is abolished, and Christ, what is revised over. See Col. ii, 15. 'Blotting out the ordinances against us, nailed them to his cross!' Verse 16. 'For this reason let no man judge or condemn you in meat, drink, or an holy day, or the Sabbath.' Verse 17. 'Which are a shadow of good things to come.' The only shadow on the tables of stone is the seventh-day Sabbath remember. We will refer to Christ's own words, for he is the Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises for the law under the new covenant. Matt. xxii. 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, this is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it.' On these two great fundamental principles, love to God and love to man, Christ has hung, or fixed his law."

Out of five professed quotations from the Scriptures, only one is quoted correctly. Such random work would be less reprehensible, if the sense were not perverted. But I think I perceive some difference between a change in the law, and a change of the law; especially since Paul explains it in verse 18 to be a "disannulling of the commandment going before." The change of the law of which the Apostle speaks, is no less a change than the annulling, or abolishing of the typical law of the Jewish dispensation, and the introduction of the antitypes belonging to the gospel dispensation. The hand-writing of ordinances was blotted out. God never made a law and afterwards changed it.

Again, our writer professes to find "the Sabbath," in the singular number, in Col. ii, 16. No Greek scholar dares translate the text so. It is plural, sabbath-days, or sabbaths. These sabbaths were the annual festival sabbaths of the Jews, which were, as Paul says, "a shadow of things to come." The antitypes of these feasts did not all come at once; but when the first one, the passover, was fulfilled—when "Christ our passover" was sacrificed for us, then commenced their fulfillment, at the commencement of the gospel age, and hence all the shadows were nailed to the cross. The feast of Pentecost was fulfilled when the Holy Spirit was poured out; we are now in the antitypical atonement; and the feast of tabernacles will meet its antitype in the future. But the weekly Sabbath has no antitype in the gospel day to which it points, but it still points back to the creation.

But our writer argues that something was abolished, and something else revised over, when the gospel was introduced. He says, "Let Paul tell what is abolished, and Christ, what is revised over." Now let us suppose that he means to be understood that the ceremonial law was abolished, and the ten commandments revised over. But this will not do; for he quotes Paul to the Colossians to prove that the Sabbath of the ten commandments is abolished, not "revised over." Then if Paul abolishes all the ceremonial law and the Sabbath of the decalogue, there is nothing left for Christ to "revise over," but the nine commandments, which all admit to be unchangeable laws. But the object of our writer, evidently, was to prove that Christ revised over the Sabbath commandment, by a change of the day. If he did so, it was labor lost; for all the shadows were nailed to the cross. "The only shadow on the tables of stone is the Seventh-day Sabbath remember." Only think of Christ revising over a shadow! But did he revise over the nine? How then are we now to keep them? Shall we show our love to God by breaking the first three, and to our neighbor by breaking the last six? The fact is, it is an impeachment of the wisdom and knowledge of the great Law-giver to say that he ever made a law of any kind, and afterwards revised it over. Shadows reached their destination, and were blotted out; and that at the very point where infinite wisdom had before determined that they should cease. There is no revising over in all his plan. He needs no second trial to make a perfect law; and such a law he had in the days of David." Ps. xix, 7.

But our writer quotes the words of Christ in Matt. xxii, to show what is revised over. These words of our Saviour are quoted from Deut. vi, 5, and Lev. xix, 18; and though they have passed from the Hebrew to the Greek, and from the Greek to the English, they stand the next thing to verbatim. They are not revised over like our friend's quotations from Paul. And besides this, there is nothing said about revising over any thing; nor is there the least intimation of such a work.

The lawyer did not ask, What will be the great commandment on which you are about to hang your new law? but, Which is the great commandment in the law? The two great principles, love to God, and love to men, were no new principles. They were as old, at least, as the books of Moses, from which they were quoted. Neither is there the least hint that Christ hung any thing new upon them. Said he, On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. All the ten commandments, and all the teachings of the ancient prophets, had been hanging for ages on these two principles; and they hang there still, notwithstanding all the efforts of sinners to abolish or revise over the fourth commandment.

We will now notice the effort of another writer in the same No. of the Herald, to creep around the law of God. He says,

"Gen. ii, 2, 3, simply states a fact, that God rested, or sabbatized the seventh creation-day. Ex. xx, commencing with the 7th verse, the children of Israel are commanded to 'remember the Sabbath-day.' The 10th verse says the seventh day is the Sabbath. But how shall they know which day is the seventh? (it being generally conceded that the true Sabbath was lost during the sojourn in Egypt, if it had been observed before.) 'O,' says the Sabbatarian, 'God wrought a miracle to point out the true day.' Exactly so! But are you very sure he did not give them a special day to be observed as a sign to them, while the legal covenant lasted only? Are you sure that the day given them, and enjoined in the fourth commandment, coincides with the paradisiac rest day? 'Certainly,' says the Sabbatarian, 'for Ex. xx, 11, gives as a reason why the children of Israel should rest on the seventh day, that God rested on the seventh day, and therefore blessed, and hallowed it.' Let us look at that again. After finishing the work of creation in six days, God had rested on the seventh day. And as he had rested on the seventh day, so he saw it good that his people should rest one day in seven, and accordingly assigned that as a reason for giving a law to that effect."

What this writer says is "generally conceded," is not conceded by any advocate of the Sabbath that I know of. It is one thing to admit that the Sabbath had been neglected by Israel while under task-masters, and quite another to say the day had been lost.

But in referring to the fourth commandment, how artfully he evades the fact that the very seventh day Israel were required to keep holy, was the Sabbath (Rest) of the Lord their God. The very day on which he rested when he made the world! Says he, "The 10th verse says the seventh day is the Sabbath." How convenient for his theory to stop there! He wants us to believe that the Jews did not keep the Creator's Rest-day, but the seventh day from the first fall of manna. If this verse had said that the Sabbath was "the seventh from the first of falling manna," how nicely it would have fitted his theory! But the Lord says, The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work. On what day is work forbidden? Is it the day on which God rested? or that "one day in seven" which "he saw it good that his people should rest?"—"the seventh from the first of falling manna?" This last day is nowhere named in the Bible. If none had desired to evade God's law, it never would have been dug up.

And now, candid reader, observe the dexterity of this writer. A reason is given in the fourth commandment; and he would have you believe that God assigns his working six days and resting the seventh at creation, as a reason for his giving them a command to rest on some other seventh day. Is it a reason for giving the command? or a reason why the people should rest? i. e., because God rested on that day. In it (God's Rest-day) thou shalt not do any work. For in six days, &c.

But our writer is very confident, and says,

'The priesthood ceased when a priesthood arose after the order of Melchisedec. The sign was taken down when he made another covenant with his people, nailing the old one to his cross. And here we call upon Sabbatarians to meet this point, or cease to fight against God, by making test questions of things which by divine limitation have long since passed away.'

The new covenant is much talked of by those who oppose God's law. But what is the new covenant? Jer. xxxi, 33. 'But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.' What is it. I will abolish my law and make a new one? No. I will revise over my law? No. What then? Let the Lord by Jeremiah answer. 'I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.' The very thing which he called his law in the days of Jeremiah, he promised to put in the hearts of his people under the new covenant. I truly fear that many who boast of the new covenant, are not included within its conditions; because they do not love God's law—it is not in their hearts.

But our writer has

'One word with reference to the first day of the week. If the church of Christ had commenced counting their days of the week, the day following that on which Jesus became the head stone of the corner, much confusion would have been obviated, and the Christian Sabbath would have been called seventh in order, which it as truly is in reference to the preceding six of labor, as the day on which God rested, was the seventh creation-day, or the Sabbath of the legal dispensation, the seventh from the first of falling manna.'

Yes; and if we commence counting on Tuesday, Monday is as truly the seventh. What a pity that the primitive church, guided as they were by the Holy Spirit, had not foreseen and obviated so 'much confusion' as has arisen from their neglect! And how unfortunate too for our friend's theory, that God did not command the Jews to rest on the seventh day from the first of falling manna! but told them which day his Rest-day was, and commanded them to rest on that, because he had rested on it. And above all, how extremely unfortunate, that neither Jesus nor his apostles left on record one plain text to prove that the first day is the Christian Sabbath! How many have chided with the apostles, like J. W. Morton, because of their neglecting to furnish them with that one text! Said he, 'Never did Rachel mourn for her children, as I mourned for that one text; but, like her, I could not be comforted, because it was not!'

Could we bring together, and view at a glance, all the foolish theories that men have invented to justify themselves in the violation of the fourth commandment, it might excite the gravest to a smile. But there is another thought which should cause us to weep. We can but pity those who throw away their lives, and provoke the wrath of God, by these inventions. Could we but see them as angels do, we certainly should weep. If angels rejoice when a sinner repents, how must they feel when they see those that have loved God, then give themselves up to be led by the Devil, and wage an unequal warfare with the King of heaven.

'Did men but know it in their reckless strife, They're laboring hard to lose eternal life.'

I would beseech all to consider well whose wrath you dare, before you venture to assail the law of God. And on the other hand, remember the declaration of Jesus, that whosoever shall do and teach these commandments, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And to those who have already entered the field against the law of the Most High, I would say in the language of another,

'Better 'twould be, ye fighters of the law, If your own weakness, verily, ye saw; If ye would hear the teachings of God's word, And live obedient to all ye heard. Better 'twould be to be God's holy will, And own the Sabbath precept binding still. Before ye make, in all ye do and say, Such wretched work to have it done away.'

If God has a law, be assured that he will judge the world by it; and those who knowingly and willingly transgress it, will surely be condemned. And if the Bible is the word of God, the ten commandments are his law; for they constitute the only code of moral laws recorded in it. R. F. C.

Mill Grove, N. Y., Feb. 10th, 1857. Ed. Advent Herald, Please copy.