THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED
By Rev. W. M. O'Hanlon
From the Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical Repository. THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED.
BY REV. W. M. O'HANLON, BURNLEY, LANCASHIRE. Our attention is next called to the place which the sabbatical law occupies under the Jewish dispensation. Hitherto, so far as we know, it might have been dependent upon oral tradition for its safe transmission. But its exposure to mutilation and wrong in this channel, for the first twenty-five centuries of its existence, would be far less than is generally imagined. It is remarkable how few links were necessary to connect the progenitor of our race with Aaron and Moses, the leaders of the Jewish people. Adopting Calmet's Chronology, Adam could converse with Methuselah, who was two hundred and forty-three years of age at the death of Adam; Methuselah could converse with Shem, who was ninety-eight years old at the death of Methuselah; Shem could converse with Abraham, who was a hundred and fifty years of age at the death of Shem; Abraham could converse with Isaac, who was sixty-nine years of age at the death of his father; Isaac could converse with his grandson Joseph, who was carried into Egypt eight years before the death of that Patriarch, and who was at least seventeen years old before his brethren sold him to the "Midianite merchantmen;" and Joseph could converse with Amram, the father of Aaron and Moses, these being born, the former sixty-one, the latter sixty-four years after the death of Joseph. So that six persons would suffice to bear down the great primeval institution, from the hands to which it was first committed, until it was lodged with those who were honored to give it a more stable position amidst the ordinances and records of the Judaic economy. But the time had now arrived for the separation of the "peculiar people." The patriarchal was to give place to a more elaborate and complicate religious regimen. Besides, the span of human life had become greatly contracted, and the links of human descent were proportionally multiplied. It was, therefore, fitting that the divine statutes should be taken out of the sphere of human tradition, placed amidst the monuments of history, and committed to the archives of a nation that might act as conservators of the precious and holy treasure. Thus would these statutes partake of the benefits of written language, and in the end constitute a part, the most essential part, of the world's ancient literature and laws. This being the case, we find that ordinance which in the beginning took the precedence of every other in the divine announcements (even of that prohibitory command, upon obedience to which the destinies of the whole race depended,) was now written by the finger of God himself, twice written upon tables of stone, emblazoned in characters of light and fire, and proclaimed by the voice of Jehovah out of the midst of that visible glory which descended and dwelt upon the mount; as if, by such external splendor, the divine majesty would supply some feeble symbol of the higher lustre of his law. "And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die. . . . And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was." Such was the solemn and august enthronement of the divine moral code. And, embosomed in the midst of it, stands this great sabbatical law, taken up out of the past, like all the other "words" of the decalogue, and invested with the awful sanctions common to them all. Ex. xx, 8-11. We say, taken up out of the past; for there is a continuity in the dispensations of God, which must not be overlooked by the student of either his works or his word. These commandments, thus uttered amid such overwhelming proofs of a present Deity, were not novel in their principles, though doubtless they were in their circumstances and form. No one who had rightly understood the genius of the patriarchal religion, or felt its spirit, would be conscious of entering a region essentially new, or of coming under a different jurisdiction, when he heard the "fiery law" issuing from the summit of Sinai. We speak of its ethics, its everlasting and immutable moralities. And it is utterly impossible to separate from these the essence at least of the precept in question, which appears, from its position and bearing, to combine, concentrate, and bring into practical form, the grand verities involved in the preceding portion of the first table of the law. It would, indeed, be a strange anomaly, if, associated with these, which in their essential elements are as old as the creation, and related to every age and nation alike, we should find a statute, belonging to a quite different category, of recent origin, and of temporary, limited authority; and which, while other regulations of the economy and ritual were inscribed upon the fragile papyrus of parchment, was thus engraven, and that not "by man's device," upon the solid and enduring stone, (thus symbolically intimating its more lasting character,) and in this form laid up and deposited in the ark of the covenant. We are not prepared for anything so wanting in harmony and order, so calculated to shock all the conclusions of the reason in the methods of the divine procedure. To this and kindred considerations we may have occasion to advert more fully at a subsequent stage of our argument. But, meanwhile, in accordance with the evidence already adduced, we hold that the sabbatical ordinance was embodied in the Jewish code, in part, at least, that it might have its rightful position among the very first and chief institutions of all religion; and that, invested with all the sanctions which could attach to a precept of its rank, antiquity, and importance, it should be handed down to future ages, in all its integrity, and with the peculiar advantages which belong to a written formula. It is not denied that the due observance of the Sabbath was obligatory upon the Israelites; or that, as a people, their religious prosperity or decline greatly depended upon it. But it is denied that the promulgation of the sabbatical law upon Sinai67could have any relation to us, who are under a new and different economy. To this point it will be our duty to direct attention, when we come to examine the question of the permanent obligation of the ordinance, and its binding character in the present day. It may tend, however, to clear our path and to facilitate our object, if we now advert to the important distinction which subsisted between the Sabbath law as a constituent part of the ethical code of the Jews, and the same law as introduced into their civil code. It should never be forgotten, in the discussion of this question, that the peculiar government established among this people, gave a special air to the whole of their national polity, forming, as it did, the basis of many regulations which could have had no existence apart from the theocracy. Thus it was that temporal rewards were annexed to obedience, and temporal punishments to disobedience, in cases where, otherwise, only the natural moral results would have followed the practice of virtue or of vice. Accordingly, disobedience to the fourth commandment, under the Mosaic economy, was not only an act of gross impiety against God as the supreme moral Governor, but likewise an act of daring rebellion against him as their theocratic King. It is on this principle we are to explain the form in which it is presented, and the penalties by which it is enforced in Ex. xxxi, 13-15; xxxv, 2, 3. And such being the righteous penalties enacted and promulgated by the sovereign lawgiver, the infliction of them as revealed in Num. xv, 32-35, must not, as it need not, excite our wonder. Thus, to despise the word of the Lord and to break his commandments was a crime, a public, open violation of the social and civil law, and one which was no more to pass with impunity under the theocratic rule established among the ancient Israelites, than the daring transgression of the law of land is to be exempt from retribution, in any well-ordered state or commonwealth of the present day. Moreover, such an act was invested with an aspect of peculiar aggravation, because committed against a Sovereign who had claims to their love and fealty, such as God alone could prefer. "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath." Superadded, then, to other considerations and inducements, there was this, which they were bound to enshrine in their "heart of hearts," that by stupendous displays of power, by "his wonders in the land of Ham," they had been rescued from the deepest degradation, from the intellectual, moral, spiritual degradation of slavery; and, from being no people, had become the people of the most high God. Nor was this all; for to them pertained "the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." From the most abject wretchedness they had been lifted to the loftiest pinnacle ever occupied by any people. If then it be alleged, by any one, that the punishment of Sabbath-breaking was greater than the offense, though our reply might simply be, "Who art thou that repliest against God?" yet we add, Canst thou measure the extent and enormity of his guilt who, in defiance of the plain, positive enactments of his God and King, and despite the majesty and mercy so frequently and so signally displayed in the history of this chosen people, and as it were in the very face of the Almighty seated upon his throne in the midst of them, could thus willfully and presumptuously transgress a law, binding alike as a religious and a civil statute, and one, be it observed, on which Jehovah had fixed as a special sign of the solemn and tender relations into which he had entered with that nation? Until we have found the scales in which such a crime can be adequately weighed, we may well bow to the divine award, mysterious though it may appear, assured that though "clouds and darkness are round about God, righteousness and right are the bases of his throne." Nor must it here be overlooked that, while this law was, in this peculiar manner, incorporated with the Jewish civil institutions, it was by no means, even under the Mosaic dispensation, restricted in its bearing to the Israelites. It was binding upon "the stranger within their gates," and thus the soul of "the stranger" was to be "refreshed." In regard to the rite of circumcision, it is clear that it was optional with the stranger whether he would submit to it or not, though such submission was necessary ere he could partake of the Passover. But with regard to the Sabbath, there seems to have been no option allowed; it was binding upon all to whom the words of consecration would come. It was binding, however, be it remembered, as much in the form of a privilege to be enjoyed, as of a duty to be discharged. It would be doing great injustice to its celestial spirit, to represent it as clothed with austerity and scowling portentously upon an enslaved people. When rightly understood, and viewed in the higher relations, nothing could be more benignant than the aspect which it wore, both to the "home born" and "the stranger." To the former, God spake these words: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." To the latter, the Most High referred in these terms: "Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." Not a few of those features which have been connected with the Sabbath under the law, and which have been regarded as forbidding and ungenial, were in reality the result of human interference, abuses imposed upon it by that formalism which had been substituted for true piety and obedience. They were the incrustations with which ritualism evermore seeks to obscure and pollute the fair and heavenly form of religion, just in proportion as the genuine spirit of devotedness to God declines and decays. From the beginning, the Sabbath being "made for man," was designed and calculated to insure his happiness, to promote his interests for both worlds, to "scatter many blessings by the way, on its march to immortality," to throw its lustre upon his earthly dwelling place, while in the act of preparing him for that loftier world where its festive light and joy never terminate, and never suffer even the shadow of a cloud. Our Divine Saviour, in the days of his ministry, resolutely set himself to remove these false and pernicious views which had grown up and defaced the beauty of this sacred ordinance. But while, with just severity, he rebuked those who "bound heavy burdens and grievous to be borne," he honored the Sabbath, by investing it with the sanctions, and yielding to it the obedience of "God manifest in the flesh." In him the glory of the Jewish Sabbath might be said to reach its zenith, and not the less, but the more so, because of those works of benevolence, those miracles of mercy, which he wrought on this day, and by which he illustrated in the most signal manner the true genius of religion and of religious ordinances, under whatever dispensation.