A few Thoughts on the Law and Sabbath of God.
By J. W. Raymond
THE law of God—that which constitutes the fundamental principles of his government—may be found chronicled in Ex. xx, 3-17. It was spoken and written from mount Sinai by Jehovah himself, while the mountain was enveloped in smoke, the vivid lightning shot athwart its summit, and the peals of thunder rolled down its base. Awful was the scene! Before it all Israel trembled and quaked. God is giving a law for the development of moral character, which is ultimately to be the criterion of judgment, and by which the doom of the world is to be irrevocably fixed for weal or woe, life or death, accordingly as they have been obedient or disobedient. And did men always have a vivid sense of the scenes attendant upon the giving of God's law, they doubtless would not trifle with it as they often do. Law is defined to be a rule of action. It is designed to impose obligations growing out of certain relations. Hence it is absolutely necessary that it be plainly and unequivocally stated. Any incoherency or ambiguity of expression in a law is sure to lead to confusion and injustice. But while it could hardly be expected that human laws would always be free from such embarrassing circumstances, coming as they do, from finite minds, it is not for a moment admissible that the law of God, being as it is the product of infinite wisdom, would be otherwise than plainly and positively stated. If we turn to Ex. xx, 3-17, we shall find the law of God as plainly stated as language can be made to express ideas. Would God give a law by which we were to form our characters, and eventually be judged, that is susceptible of a double or triple construction? Most assuredly he would not. The law of the Lord is perfect. Ps. xix, 7. While the perpetuity of God's law is generally conceded, and there is little or no difference of opinion in regard to the import of the first three and last six articles thereof, there are a variety of opinions in reference to the fourth article of that law. And as I wish to engage your attention for a few moments in regard to the fourth commandment, in order that you may have it before you, I will transcribe it. Read it carefully. “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates ; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it.” Ex. xx, 8–11.
The above is the only divine Sabbath law in existence. The day of this precept is the Sabbath, or there is none. To no other conclusion can the Bible student come. This article of Jehovah's law, like all the rest, is so plain that a child of ordinary capacity can easily understand it. But the most superficial observer can readily see, if not hopelessly biased, a distinct line of demarkation between the requirements of the above Sabbath law and the practice of the majority of people of the present day. It is too clear for mistake. Do most people keep the first day of the week? The law requires the holy observance of the seventh. But perhaps you are ready to conclude, like many others, that the law is not definite as to the day; that it simply requires the observance of one day in seven, and no day in particular; that all that it inculcates is the observance of the seventh day after six days of labor, leaving it optional with us where to commence the six days of labor. But hold! If your position that the fourth commandment simply requires the observance of one day in seven, but no day in particular, is tenable, the indefinite article which denotes 'one thing of a kind, but not any particular one,' is the very article which should have been incorporated into the fourth commandment. But on examination we find the definite article, which denotes 'some particular thing or things,' used to the exclusion of the indefinite. But how the Sabbath law of God can contain the definite article eight times, to the exclusion of the indefinite, five times relating to the day of that law, and yet not make obligatory the observance of a definite day, it will take more than a doctor of divinity to explain. Now just as sure as the definite article is definite, and God rested on a definite day at creation, and the fourth commandment requires the observance of the day on which he rested, just so sure the Sabbath law requires the observance of a definite day. On examination we find that the Sabbath law inculcates the observance of the very day of the week on which God rested at creation. Did God rest on one day in seven and no day in particular? Nonsense! Imagine a person trying to keep one day in seven, but no day in particular! Does he keep the first day of the week? He keeps a particular day; for each week has but one first day. Does he keep the seventh day of the week? He keeps a particular day; for each week has but one seventh day. And so of the rest. And we all know that our septenary division of time, or the division of time into periods of seven days, called weeks, takes for its origin the act of God in creating the world in six days, and resting on the seventh. In fact, the nearest any one can come to keeping110one day in seven, irrespective of a day, is to keep one day one week, and another the next, not knowing from week to week what day he will keep the next. This is the chaotic conclusion to which this one-day-in-seven-and-no-day-in-particular theory inevitably tends. But is the omniscient God of Israel the author of a law thus "loose on the handle?" Is he the author of a sliding scale in morality?—a scale that would make any and every day of the week the Sabbath? We need not answer, No. Perhaps you are ready to ask if God has not changed his Sabbath to the first day of the week. By no means. It is impossible to change the day on which God rested. It is just as impossible to change the rest-day of the Father, as it would be to change the resurrection-day of the Son. It is just as true to-day, and will be through the ceaseless cycles of eternity, that God rested on the seventh day, blessed and sanctified it, as it was the day after he rested. This fact, the basis of the sabbatic institution, is immutable: hence the institution of the Sabbath is unchangeably fixed to the seventh day. The only thing that could possibly release us from our duty to keep the seventh day, would be the abrogation of the fourth commandment. But this the Bible nowhere teaches has ever been done. Another day would be another institution, for another reason, requiring another and different law. But search the sacred Bible for another such day, institution, and law, and you search in vain. But perhaps you are ready to say that we cannot tell which the true seventh day is. There is a cross and sacrifice attendant upon the observance of the seventh day; and doubtless many who urge this as an objection, find it more difficult to keep the seventh day than to find it. But we will proceed to prove that our seventh day is the true seventh day from creation. There are several trains of argument demonstrative of this; but we call your attention to but one. We base it on the position of first-day observers. The first day of the week is kept in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, which proves that our first-day corresponds with the first-day from the time of our Saviour; and if our first-day corresponds with the first day from the time of Christ, then our seventh day is the seventh day from that time. There is no evading this. It only remains, then, that we prove that the seventh day of our Saviour's time was the seventh day from creation, and we shall have proved that our seventh day is but a continuation of the seventh day from creation. Luke xxiii, 56, and xxiv, 1, proves this: "And they returned and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the sepulchre," &c. So we see that they kept the day preceding the first day of the week, which corresponds with our seventh day, as above shown, and kept it according to the commandment, which requires the observance of the day on which God rested; which proves that the seventh day of our Saviour's time was the seventh day from creation; and consequently that our seventh day of the week is the seventh day of the week from creation, inasmuch as our seventh day is the seventh day of our Saviour's time. God commands us to keep it holy. Will you do so? The matter is between you and a holy God, who will hold all accountable creatures amenable to his law. How will you decide this very important question? The issues of your decision will take hold on eternity; and awful indeed will be those issues if you decide against God's holy and just law. Says Paul, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Search the record of the past as given in the Bible, and you will find that John Wesley spoke truthfully when he said, "Our God is a particular God." Oh suffer no influence to turn you from God's blessed law of truth. God is highly favoring you with light upon this momentous subject. Do not, I humbly beseech you, trifle with it. Search the Bible. Pray to the blessed Jesus for strength to keep his Father's law; for he himself has said, "Blessed are they that do (the Father's) commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. xxii, 14. I can but hope to meet and strike hands with you in that city, and with the ransomed host of God help swell, in loftiest strains, the sweet pean of victory which the saints will there chant in sweetest lays. But I should be unfaithful if I did not here say that faith in Christ and obedience to God's law is the only avenue that opens up to that joyous and heavenly state. O let us walk therein, have respect unto his commandments, cease following the multitude to do evil: so will it be well with us in the end. Amen.