Fast and Loose With the Word by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 26, 1914

Fast and Loose With the Word

By C. M. S.

IN the issue of the Outlook dated February 14, the editor publishes a letter from one who has a very firm conviction that God's Word cannot be trifled with, and that God will hold men very strictly to account for the attitude which they maintain toward his law, the ten commandments. This letter the editor, Dr. Lyman Abbott, calls "The Law," and his reply to it he denominates "The Gospel." The position which the writer of the letter takes is impregnable, and the arguments are unanswerable. It is always true that when one attempts to answer an unanswerable argument, he plunges himself into dilemmas from which he cannot extricate himself as long as he clings to his position. This Dr. Abbott has done. The letter referred to is worthy of reproduction, and we therefore give it here entire:—

When I went to Sunday school, I was taught the ten commandments, and one of them declared that "the seventh day is the Sabbath." I was taught that this is a divine command, like all the others of the ten commandments. But I find that, three hundred and twenty-five years after Christianity was born, a council of human beings, called the Council of Nicæa, convened by a human being named Constantine the Great, instituted the first-day sabbath to displace the seventh-day Sabbath. Even if the members of that council, and Constantine also, were saints,—and they were not, for the clergy in those days were ignorant and immoral, and Constantine was the murderer of his wife, son, and nephew, and was a political weathercock,—even if they were saints, they were all human beings.

Why shall any Christian keep a sabbath which is man-made, when the seventh-day Sabbath, which is God-made, is set aside? And why need any Christian show any respect for Christianity when the personal example of Jesus is deliberately disregarded? He kept the seventh-day Sabbath. His example is, or ought to be, surely good enough for his followers. He would keep the seventh-day Sabbath if he were alive today.

A yet deeper subconscious thought is this: If religion can be altered by human beings, why respect religion? I believe that the falling off in church attendance, the growing disregard for the Sabbath, and the gradual permeation of society with unreligious and irreligious poison is due to the subconscious thought that human beings may interpret even the plainest and most direct and most unmistakable divine declarations as they please.

The Protestants declare that they are not bound by the declarations of certain councils. Therefore they revolted from Catholicism. Why, therefore, do they not refuse to be bound by that Council of Nicæa?

I believe that Christianity would be all the stronger if it returned to Bible teachings. I believe it would be considered more binding if it did not set aside divine commands by human councils. I believe that numberless Christians feel that they can take any liberty they please with what is called religion if human beings in council assembled may refuse to follow the highest example of implicit obedience, and may, besides, set aside by human reasoning a divine command.

"Back to the Bible!" I say. "Back to first principles!" "Back to the seventh-day Sabbath!" It required moral courage for Wyclif, Luther, and Calvin to declare themselves against council-made or man-made doctrines and innovations. Is there no modern Wyclif or Luther or Calvin?

One other point. If Sunday is the Sabbath, then, to follow the precedent of those days, Saturday night after sunset should be observed as a Sabbath in every Christian city. Is it? It is these inconsistencies, these human settings aside of divine commands, this unchristian refusal to follow the personal example of the very Founder of Christianity, that make us subconsciously reflect that we need not trouble ourselves with the demands of Christianity as now interpreted. That is to say, all that we need do is live a moral life, and, if we choose, never set a foot in church, disregard the Sabbath, and observe only those social amenities which we, in our human, and therefore superdivine(?), reason approve.

May I ask for an expression of your own opinion on the restoration of the seventh-day Sabbath?

It is indeed refreshing to read such a setting forth of truth, and to know that this has passed under the eyes of the many thousands of subscribers of the Outlook. The writer of that letter was God's messenger, crying out in that wilderness of higher criticism, "Back to the Bible!" "Back to first principles!" "Back to the seventh-day Sabbath!" It is, as that writer declares, the inconsistency of professing to follow God while actually following man and rejecting God that is disintegrating the influence of the church, quenching the fire of its zeal, dissipating its energies, and making a mockery of its pretended power for accomplishing the work of God in the world. To attempt to accomplish God's work by turning our backs upon God's law and following a course of our own making, is to build another tower of Babel, and to have our work smitten finally, as ancient Babel was, by the lightnings of God's displeasure.

It is with great disappointment, therefore, that we read Dr. Abbott's reply to the letter — and he calls it "The Gospel." It is too long to reproduce, and its reproduction could accomplish no good. He scouts the idea that the strict keeping of the law of God will produce either a good Christian or a good citizen, and appears to try to put his correspondent in the attitude of one who would achieve eternal life by his own doing of the law. While that cannot be done, neither can that man be accounted righteous who turns his back upon that law and seeks to annul its eternal principles by turning them into generalities that vanish into nothingness.

How completely the editor of the Outlook fails to understand the law of God and what is involved in its keeping, is shown by his declaration that a man may keep all the ten commandments and yet not be humane, not be pure, not be honest, not be truthful, and not keep the Sabbath. Jesus himself showed what is involved in keeping the law when he declared that to keep the seventh commandment one must be pure, and that to keep the sixth, which says, "Thou shalt not kill," one must not even harbor hatred in the heart. So the statement that one can keep the law of God and not be humane, not be pure, not be truthful, is not true.

Dr. Abbott says: "The ten commandments are not ten statutes which must be carefully studied and strictly construed and literally obeyed. They are concrete illustrations of general principles in accordance with which one should regulate his conduct. . . . The general principle involved in the fourth commandment is the necessity, for the welfare of the individual and for the welfare of the community, of keeping some stated time free from the toil and drudgery of the world for rest, recreation, and ministry to the higher life. . . . The particular hour of the day or day of the week is of no importance."

The editor of the Outlook takes direct issue, in this, with the One who gave the commandments. The editor has given his reason for the fourth commandment, and God has given his. They do not agree. Dr. Abbott says the reason for the commandment lies in the necessity for keeping some stated time free from toil and drudgery for the welfare of the individual and the community, for rest, recreation, and ministry to the higher life. God says he gave the commandment because that "in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Again: "And God blessed the seventh day, and

hallowed it; because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made." Gen. 2:3. Surely, if we are to be followers of God, we must take his reason in preference to that given by Dr. Abbott. God set his Sabbath in the heart of his law and in the heart of his people to be a perpetual memorial of creation, whose true observance would keep God constantly in the minds and hearts of his children. Had it been kept faithfully as he designed it should be, we should not read in the first chapter of the book of Romans Paul's terrible indictment against that people and all others who forget God. The true keeping of God's memorial Sabbath would make it impossible to forget him.

Dr. Abbott declares that "the particular hour of the day or day of the week is of no importance." So reasoned that man who went out on the Sabbath day to gather sticks and was stoned by order of the Lord for so doing. So may have reasoned the children of Israel who went out on the Sabbath day to gather manna against the explicit order of the Lord. They may have even wondered why they found none. But they found that Jehovah himself was still keeping the day he required them to keep, and therefore the manna did not fall upon that day. God was particular, and still is particular, and they who really care more for pleasing him than for pleasing themselves will obey his commands.

Dr. Abbott's idea is that the law is to be obeyed in principle, but not "strictly construed" nor "literally obeyed." What a harsh and ungenuine ring such a statement has when compared with God's own estimate of his law and with our Saviour's statement of its integrity, its perpetuity, and its great importance. God declares, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony [law] of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." Ps. 19:7. That being true, how can it be considered unessential to construe it strictly and obey it literally? If that law is perfect, it cannot be altered without being made imperfect. If it is not strictly construed, it is misconstrued; if it is not literally obeyed, it is disobeyed.

Said our Saviour: "In vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men." Mark 7:7. And again: "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:18-20.

Our Saviour "strictly construed" the law of God, and in this scripture teaches us the importance of doing the same. He "literally obeyed" the law, and by his obedience and by his teaching admonishes us to do the same. He was our example, and we are admonished by the written Word of God that we ought to "walk even as he walked." Dr. Abbott himself admits this. His closing paragraph reads: "The whole of Christianity is summed up in the two words, Follow me." But to follow him is to do as he did, and he kept the seventh-day Sabbath. To follow him is to teach as he taught, and he taught the integrity, the perpetuity, the unchangeableness, and the infinite importance of God's law.

With Dr. Abbott's correspondent we say, "Back to the Bible!" "Back to first principles!" "Back to the seventh-day Sabbath!" John, "the beloved disciple," sums up the whole matter and answers Dr. Abbott's arguments in these words: "Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoso keepeth his word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected. Hereby we know that we are in him: he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked." 1 John 2:3-6.