Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 18, 1893
The Law as Judgment’s Standard
"For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." Rom. 2:13.
The above statement is a logical and obvious conclusion from the fact stated just before: "As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law."
The law is the rule of judgment, from the fact that it is the rule of life. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment." Eccl. 12:13, 14. "For he that said [margin, "that law which said"], Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. . . . So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." James 2:11, 12.
In the scriptures above quoted these facts are clearly shown: (1) That the law of God is the standard of man's conduct—his whole duty. (2) That it is the law of ten commandments, or the Decalogue, the law which contains the commandments noted. See also Rom. 7:7. (3) That this law will be the rule of the future judgment, as it is of present conduct. This in justice must be the case. A man who is accused of crime against the law of France is not condemned or judged by the laws of England or America. If it is found on examination that he has done nothing contrary to the law of France, he is acquitted, or pronounced just. And so also he who is not found guilty of transgressing God's law will, by the Judge pronouncing sentence according to the law, be declared just, or righteous.
But it is also a declared fact of Scripture that "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight." Why?—Because "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Rom. 3:23. God's glory is his character. (See Ex. 33:18, 19; 34:6, 7.) His character, his righteousness, his goodness, is expressed in his holy law. "All thy commandments are righteousness." Ps. 119:172. "Ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law." Isa. 51:7. The Lord again declares, "My righteousness shall not be abolished," "My righteousness shall be forever." Isa. 51:6, 8. Therefore, as God's character is his glory, and as the law is the expression of that character, those who sin or come short of that glory must be condemned by the law; and this is clearly declared, "Sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4); "Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." The glory of God is, therefore, synonymous with the righteousness of the law, and coming short of that glory is synonymous with sin, or the transgression of the law.
As all, therefore, are sinners, all are condemned by the law, and therefore by the law can none be called just. Angels of God may be said to be just in God's sight, because they have never sinned. The law would declare them just. But not so with man. "What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law [Greek, en tō nomō, "within the law," "subject to the law"], that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." "We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." Rom. 3:19, 9. "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin."
In the very nature of the case it is not possible, therefore, for fallen man of himself to keep the law. If, as soon as he realized his duty to do this, he should begin to try, his past life would condemn him. And then, again, the law does not demand mere negative service of not doing wrong, but it demands in all its fullness just that righteousness which is in God; it demands loving God with all the heart, might, mind, and strength. But this righteousness man of himself can never attain to, because this love he does not know, for "the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Rom. 8:7, 8.
Man, therefore, is not righteous, nor can he obtain righteousness through the law. Why? The apostle tells it all in the expression, "What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh." The heart is at enmity with God. Man cannot do what he would. As expressed by Paul, "The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do." He longed to do better, but he found another law in his members, warring against the awakened desires of his mind, bringing him into captivity to the law of sin in his members." This leads him to cry out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
Here Christ reveals himself. When man finds that the only enemy he has is sin within him; that he has no power to help himself; that someone from without must deliver him, then Jesus is always near, mighty to save everyone who will trust him. He has wanted to save the soul from the beginning, but the soul has not been willing. It has counted God its enemy, when it was at enmity with God. God hates sin, and cannot be partner with it, but he loves man—loves him so much that he gave his only-begotten Son to reconcile man to himself. All that man needs is to come into harmony, or peace, with God. But as man has been a poor, wretched sinner, his sins must be taken away. As he has been in rebellion against God, he must submit to God's will. And as he can do none of these things for himself, he must lay hold of the only One who can do it, who has done it, for him. He must find his peace in Christ, who "is our peace."
Peace with God means harmony, agreement, with God. And Christ is one with the Father. He "did no sin." He kept his "Father's commandments." He lived a life of perfect righteousness, and then laid down that life for us, that we might possess it in our mortal bodies. And all he asks is simple faith. Upon the sinner who believes, he bestows "the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference." But can the sinner do nothing of himself?—No, absolutely nothing, save to choose God's way, submit to God's way, and this is simple faith. The sinner is "without strength," sick from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot with the deadly leprosy of sin; but in Christ is all strength; in his word is all healing. And he gives it all freely by faith. By faith God's own righteousness is imputed for the sins of the past; by faith his Spirit, or life, is given to keep from sin (see Gal. 3:14), "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).98"Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” That faith will work by love (Gal. 5:6), and that love will keep all of God’s commandments (1 John 5:3). But the love is given by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), and “it is God which worketh in” us “both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).
SHALL AMERICA BECOME ROMANIZED?
What Roman Catholics Think.
In the Catholic Review for September is an article of thirteen pages on the "Missionary Outlook in the United States," by the noted "Paulist Father" of New York City, Walter Elliott. It was a paper read at the Columbian Catholic Congress. The fact that it was written by such a loyal Catholic, who by the way has been found frequently on the same platform with Protestant clergymen, that it was read at the Columbian Congress, and that it was afterward published in a leading Catholic magazine, would show that it doubtless reflects the sentiments of the Roman Catholic Church as regards the Protestant sects of the United States. We wish to notice four points: (1) What Rome feels it her duty to do; (2) the condition of the Protestant churches; (3) the power by which she hopes to accomplish her work; (4) what the prospects are for her success?
1. What Rome feels it her duty to do. She feels that it is her duty to save the American people, and to proclaim to "the entire American nation" that "the certainty of Christ’s truth is with us [Roman Catholics]." She feels that, as the "characteristics" of the people of the United States are liberty and intelligence, and "the only common creed is progress, human dignity, and the destiny of the great republic," "any claimant for a hearing must be able to square his fundamental principles with these beliefs." That is, the Roman Catholic Church must show that she fosters and upholds both liberty and intelligence, and that progress, human dignity, and the destiny of the great republic are safe in her hands as in no others. He says:—
"The Catholics are mingled among this people in the proportion of about one to six, and are the only perfectly organized body of Christians." "God would have us missionaries to the American people." "The dense and tangled forest of prejudice has already been pierced. That vice of honest minds is now chiefly to be found among the more ignorant. Few converts but will tell you that their first step was surprise that Catholics had been falsely accused. There are men and women all around us who have but to learn just what we are [Italics his] as a religious body, to be led on to conversion. They already know that we have been basely calumniated."
He then goes on to say that in the "better class of minds" the chief difficulties will lie in "timidity, dread of the mysterious, or a false view of reason’s prerogatives, unwillingness to submit to unchangeable truth," in other words, the Catholic Church. In many other cases it will be worldliness, sensuality, family pride, human respect, etc.; of the first two there need be no trouble; Rome is full of such. And Father Elliott feels that Protestants are willing to listen to every priest who will give patient, intelligent exposition of their faith.
2. The condition of the Protestant sects. We will let the writer speak for himself:—
The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism is our opportunity. Denominations, and "creeds," and "schools," and "confessions" are going to pieces before our eyes. Great men built them, and little men can demolish them. This new nation cannot but regard with disdain institutions [Protestant] hardly double its own short life, and yet utterly decrepit; cannot but regard with awe an institution [the Roman Catholic Church] in whose life the great republic could have gone through its career nearly a score of times. I tell you that the vigor of national youth must be amazed at the freshness of perennial [Roman Catholic] religion, and must soon salute it as divine. The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of our people’s minds, or are being thrust out. . . .
Consider, then, how it is with our noble-hearted friends; in their case it is religion wandering here and there in search of a church. How many earnest souls are about us, weary of doubtful teachings, glad to hearken to, aye, and to believe, anyone who promises them relief.
See, too, and admire how their religious instincts strike after organic life. As Calvinism dies, Christian Endeavor is born and counts a million members in a day—good works making little of faith, as at first faith made little of good works. See that while Methodism leaves the slum and is petrifying in lordly temples and in universities, the Salvation Army scours the gutters it [Methodism] has turned from with loathing. I tell you that the people around us are religious, that they long for God, and are ready for those divine rules of the higher life called Catholicity.
No form of belief faces civilized irreligion with half the courage of Catholicity. A vigorous man exults in the trial of his strength. It is incredible that an intelligent Catholic shall not command the attention of thoughtful minds on questions of such absorbing interest as: What becomes of our dead? Can we communicate with them? Can we get along without the Bible? What think you of Christ? whose Son is he? We have the truth on all such vital questions; Catholic truth is simple, credits itself, and is in the highest degree commendatory of the church as compared with the Protestant denominations.
3. The power by which Rome seeks to accomplish this. She talks of Christ?—Yes, but not of the simple power of his gospel. It is form, ordinances, ceremonies, the church, the sacraments, great men. He declares that it is—
a duty [which Catholics have not properly felt] to proclaim to them [the American people] that the certainty of Christ’s truth is with us, that the pardon of sins is in the contrition, confession, and satisfaction of the sacrament of penance, that the union of their souls with God is in the communion of his Son’s body and blood in the eucharist.
But not a word of Christ’s free grace. He contrasts the tribulation of the early church with the easy way Rome now has of obtaining converts:—
Why, when it was to fly in the face of high Rome, to be burned to death, to be devoured by wild beasts, countless thousands yearly rushed into the church. And now it is to float into the haven of peace and joy; it is to taste the sweetness of the Lord Jesus Christ without any persecution; it is to embrace a religion whose dogma of human dignity and equality—listen to Leo XIII. as he expounds it—adds to American greatness the placet of higher Rome.
Of the relative value of the word of God and man he thus speaks:—
The Bible is the word of God, and it enlightens me; but a zealous Christian is another Christ to me. Combined action can do much, but the supreme combination is that of virtue and sympathetic interest in a single person. . . . Councils have done much for religion, but men and women have done more, for they made the councils. . . . It was not new enactments that saved us, but new men—Ignatius, Philip, Neri, Teresa, and Francis de Sales, and Vincent de Paul, and their like. . . . American bishops, priests, and laity, working together in an apostolic spirit, will missionize the entire land in half a decade of years.
The parish priest should so engage in every good work that his conduct would build him "a pulpit in every household in his town," and so enable him to introduce the Catholic religion to men’s notice under the most favorable circumstances. "The parish priest should watch the local papers and defend and advocate the truths of religion, natural and revealed. He should carefully provide that Catholic journals come to each family." "Let every family have its little library on doctrinal and controversial books and pamphlets, its Catholic paper and magazine; every man and woman their little list of non-Catholic friends, . . . to whom they are ever talking and lending books." Many of the things said on this topic are good, as presenting the human side of the question; but it is all human. It is the penance, the sacraments, the church, but not one word of the free grace and pardon of Christ to all who will believe him.
4. What prospects are there for her success? They are many indeed.
a. Is not what Rome herein says regarding the unsettled condition of the great mass of Protestants true? She says, "The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of people’s minds or are being thrust out." Is not this so as regards the Protestant churches themselves? The older dogmas of Protestantism, prominent above all others, were, as expressed by D’Aubigne, Book 14, chap. 1:—
It [the Reformation] had proclaimed for its teacher the word of God; for salvation, faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. . . . The gospel of the Reformers had nothing to do with the world and with politics. . . . The Reformation was destined to exercise no other influence over princes and people than that which proceeds from the gospel of peace.
But for the word of God the Protestant churches have substituted creeds; the word of God has been discredited before the people by the ruthless hand of the "higher criticism" of Protestant pastors. Faith, simple faith in Jesus Christ, has been superseded and Christ rejected by appeals to civil law. The spiritual weapons of the Holy Ghost, the weapons not carnal, have been cast aside, and the church has laid hold of carnal weapons, the boycott, the threat, the civil law. The power of godliness has been denied by turning from Christ to the world.
b. The ignorance of the people. Rome thinks the people prejudiced because they are ignorant; but knowledge of Rome by every honest heart would lead to summary rejection of all her claims. There is no need of being ignorant. The "more sure word of prophecy" has clearly predicted her career, and the truthful pen of authentic history has traced in letters of blood and fire her whole career. But these are covered up or denied by Rome. This we should expect. Her influence is such that truthful records of her turpitude and cruelty of the past have been expunged from histories, school and otherwise, while the misdeeds of a blinded "Protestantism," in reality papal, remain. And not a few Protestant teachers and papers are apologists or defenders of Roman Catholicism today. What should we expect in view of this but that when the matter is explained in Rome’s way and indorsed by "Protestants," by words and their own present day prac99tices, the mass of the people would say: "We will follow the one admitted by all to be the church of Christ. Rome claims she is the only church of Christ, and that Protestants are not even churches of Christ at all; Protestants admit that Rome is a church of Christ, and each of their organizations are no more than that; to be sure we will take Rome." It is good logic from the premises.
c. Rome's power in the press and in politics. Says Father Elliott:—
In most places the secular press carefully excludes everything hostile to Catholicity, and opens its columns to communications from respectable Catholics, especially the clergy.
It is true. Catholics are one-sixth to one-eighth of the population, but it is safe to say that double the space is given to Catholic news that is given to Protestant news. All this has its influence on a people which read but little beyond the daily or weekly newspaper. "There are multitudes of converts," says Mr. Elliott, "who were first drawn to us by a paragraph in the daily paper."
d. Rome's power in politics. We have often spoken of this. She is enabled, from the fact that her people are united, to turn any general election as she pleases. Despite the combined protest and influence of the Protestant churches, she has for years been able to obtain more money from the government for the Catholic Indian schools than all the Protestant churches together. See the article by Mr. Magan in another column.
e. The religion of Rome. It is a mighty element in her success. It appeals to the selfishness of the human heart. It is the glory of man, of self, and not the glory of God. It is human means, human deeds, human ceremonies, versus the power of simple faith in the Christ of God. It is penance or money rather than forsaking of sin. It is having one's own salvation to the church rather than considering it a matter of personal responsibility, personal relation between the soul and God.
Add to all these Rome's unity, her persistence, her unchangeableness of purpose, her flexible policy, and what has a weakened and apostate Protestantism to meet it? There is but one way of salvation, and that is personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting wholly in God's mercy, giving up all for him. Rome presents, with all the assurance of absolute truth, an easier way. The majority of the people want the easier way.
Reader, the easy way, the broad road, ends in death; the way of Christ, the way of persecution, though it be, ends in life everlasting. Will you go with Rome in her temporary success here, or with Christ to eternal glory?
"SABBATH OR LORD'S DAY, WHICH?"
By Editor
THERE has been sent to us an article with the above title, clipped from the Christian Standard of September 2, 1893, with a request that we review some of its alleged points and arguments. The paper from which the article is taken is an organ of the Christian denomination, or, as they are sometimes called, "Campbellites," and we suppose that the writer, Mr. G. W. Tate, belongs to the same denomination. However, this matters little; we will let his arguments, proofs, and statements weigh in proportion to their merit. As the Bible, the word of God, is the professed "standard" of most Christians (we would that it were of all) we will weigh the question in its unerring scales.
1. Mr. Tate starts out with the statement that the Jews had four sabbaths, the seventh day, the seventh month, the seventh year, and the seventh sabbath of years, "and each sabbath was made sacred and holy." But Mr. Tate does not tell us where the record of the seventh-month sabbath is. The fact is, there was no whole month so kept. Certain days of the seventh month were holy (see Lev. 23: 24–36). And of the remaining sabbaths mentioned, but two were peculiarly Jewish, namely, the seventh year and the fiftieth year. The Jews really had seven annual sabbaths and feast days, as recorded in Leviticus 23, but these were distinct from "the Sabbaths of the Lord," the weekly Sabbath. See verse 38 compared with Ex. 20: 8–11.
2. He thus speaks of the first seventh day:—
God blessed and sanctified the seventh day because he rested on that day from his work. Gen. 2:2. But we have no evidence here that the seventh day was given as a religious institution.
If Gen. 2: 2, 3 does not constitute evidence, we do not know what could. Note the acts of God: (1) He rested, and that made it God's rest day. (2) He blessed the day. His blessing, doubtless, was over all his works, but he specially blessed that day above all the others, by putting into it himself; and what God blesses is blest. (3) He sanctified (or hallowed, Ex. 20: 11, the original word is the same) the day. Sanctify means to set apart, to appoint to a holy or sacred use. He set apart the day for a blessed day, and it was to be used by man for that purpose. When was man to so use and keep it?—In the beginning, when both Sabbath and man came from the hand of their Creator. Mark 2: 27, 28; Col. 1: 16. And these acts of God made the seventh day a holy day, God's blessed Sabbath. See the use of the word "sanctify" in the case of Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19: 23, 12), where God's own presence sanctified, or made holy, the mount, and which sanctification involved a command to the people. In Josh. 20: 7 we are told that God "sanctified" (margin, or "appointed") cities of refuge. What for?—For man to regulate and use as God commanded. In what stronger way could the Lord show that the day was a religious holy day?
3. Says our author:—
We have no evidence that it was used as a sacred day throughout the patriarchal age.
We have sufficient evidence. But absence of evidence of this character does not prove the non-observance or non-obligation of an institution of God. The Sabbath is not mentioned from the days of Moses to the days of David, a period of over 400 years, yet no one doubts that it was kept during that time. Other moral precepts are not mentioned in Genesis, but all know they were observed by the faithful. If the government of the United States had issued but one gold dollar in the year 1781, and that dollar had been hidden away until now, the fact that men had lost sight of it would not affect its value. It would be worth its face now as then. Its non-circulation would not affect it. The only question to be settled would be the genuineness of the government stamp. The seventh-day Sabbath bears from the beginning the image and superscription of the Creator.
The evidence is very clear in this case that the rulers [elders] were not accustomed to the Sabbath.
And this doubtless was true. The Egyptians, whose slaves the Hebrews had been, were sun worshippers, and in Egypt, as in all sun-worshipping countries, the Sabbath was crushed out. The slaves were not allowed to keep the Sabbath. It was evidently attempted, for the old sun-worshipping king, or Pharaoh, whose very title indicated his idolatry, complained, "Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest [Hebrew, shabath] from their burdens" (Ex. 5: 5); and, therefore, Pharaoh increased their burdens. It was because of this that the Lord, through Moses, demanded, "Let my people go, that they may serve me." Ex. 10: 3. And as soon as they were delivered, the Lord proved them by the Sabbath.100
5. Upon the fourth commandment Mr. Tate thus speaks:—
Then, when the law was given, the Lord said, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Ex. 20: 8. This is the first time it was enacted as a statutory law.
God does not enact moral laws; they exist by the very nature of things; he simply proclaimed his constitution. It might as well be said that there were no prohibitions against idolatry, profanity, murder, theft, or adultery prior to the proclamation of the Decalogue on Sinai. Genesis is not a book of law, but a brief history of 2,500 years of the race, and God's providential dealings with them. But, brief as it is, it does show this: (1) That men were righteous, that is, they "walked with God" (Gen. 5: 22; 6: 9; 26: 5), thus showing perfect agreement with his character (Amos 3: 3). Now as God is righteous (John 17: 25)—"there is no unrighteousness in him" (Ps. 92: 15)—and as "all unrighteousness is sin" (1 John 5: 17), and "sin is the transgression of that law" (1 John 3: 4) which says, "Thou shalt not covet" (Rom. 7: 7), and as God is unchangeable in character (Ps. 89: 34; James 1: 17), it therefore follows that the law which point out sin is the eternal expression of God's character. And thus it is declared not only that his commandments are righteous (Ps. 119: 172), but the people that know righteousness are the people in whose hearts is God's law, and that his righteousness shall not be abolished (Isa. 51: 6, 7). This also Jesus declares, not even to one jot or tittle. (2) All God's law was in force from the beginning, and those who transgressed any principle of the Decalogue prior to its proclamation from Sinai, sinned. See transgression of second commandment, Gen. 35: 2; of fifth, 9: 22–25; of the seventh, 39: 9; of the eighth, 31: 19; of the sixth, 4: 8; of the fourth, Ex. 16: 26–28. Much more proof might be given. The existence of the sin implies necessarily the existence of the law. See Rom. 5: 12, 13. Therefore the Sabbath was as much a part of that law before Sinai as it was afterward.
But, further, we have shown that the record of the institution of the Sabbath shows there must have been a law. On this point take the following from the celebrated German commentator, Lange:—
If we had no other passage than this of Gen. 2: 3, there would be no difficulty in deducting from it a precept for the universal observance of a Sabbath, or seventh day, to be devoted to God as holy time by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were specially prepared. The first man must have known it. The words, "He hallowed it," can have no meaning otherwise. They would be a blank unless in reference to some who were required to keep it holy.
And all this the commandment states, not as then taking place, 2,500 years after the creation, but at the close of the creation week.
6. Mr. Tate continues:—
God now takes his rest day and gives it to Israel to commemorate their rest from slavery in 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 day." Deut. 5: 15. Thus we see the Sabbath was given to the Jews for reasons that cannot be applied to other people. It had never been given as a law to any other people. Witness the following: "The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." Deut. 5: 3. The Sabbath had never been revealed to them before they crossed the Red Sea. The prophet says: "Thou madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant." Neh. 9: 14.
The covenant here referred to is not God's covenant commanded (Deut. 4: 13), but the covenant made with Israel, to which Israel was a party, as recorded in Ex. 19: 5–8; 24: 3–8. The tables of the law were yet not given.
We wonder why the objectors to the seventh-day Sabbath do not quote the commandment in showing the reason why God gave the Sabbath. The commandment shows that God gave the Sabbath as a memorial of creation. He has by it made "his wonderful works to be remembered." Ps. 111: 4. And as long as men remember the Sabbath of the Lord for the purpose for which God gave it, they will never forget God, their Creator.
If man had never sinned, this would have been the sole purpose of the Sabbath as a token, the memorial of God's power in creation. But man fell and must be redeemed if saved at all. The redemption and salvation of man can be accomplished only by creative, almighty power, for the regeneration of man is recreation. See Eph. 2: 10; 4: 24; 2 Cor. 5: 17; Col. 1: 13; 3: 10. God through Christ is the great Creator and Re-creator and Redeemer. 1 Cor. 8: 6; Col. 1: 13–20; Isa. 45: 18, 21; 49: 26.
Now the Lord, the Creator, the mighty One of Jacob, was the one who redeemed Israel from the bondage of Egypt. "The Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." Deut. 7: 8. The obligation to observe the Sabbath rested equally upon Israel with all the race in their duty to their Creator, and this is expressed in the fourth commandment; but now the mighty power of God, manifested in their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, demanded special gratitude and increased obligation to their Redeemer as well as Creator.
It was in this twofold way that the Sabbath was made known—as declared by Nehemiah—as a memorial of God's power in creation, as a continual token of God's power in redemption. And so the Lord says in Eze. 20: 12: "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." The Sabbath is a continual sign of the sanctifying, redeeming, recreating power of Christ continually manifest toward his people in saving and keeping them from sin. Therefore again the Lord says: "And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20: 20. How much does God design to be the Lord our God? In creation alone?—Nay, but in eternal redemption or recreation. Isa. 66: 2, 23.
Now all men owe God their allegiance because they belong to him by creation. Every genuine Christian will acknowledge that he is under additional obligation to God, because God has redeemed him from the bondage of the Egypt of sin, recreated him anew in Christ Jesus, and he will therefore regard with special delight God's rest day, the sign of that power which redeemed him and keeps him.
The Sabbath was, therefore, instituted in the beginning, binding upon all men, and is now especially obligatory upon all who acknowledge the redemption which in is Christ Jesus. More of this in our next.
SAYS the Occident of December 7:—
By Editor
SAYS the Occident of December 7:—
“Professed Christians should lose no time in uniting on the common platform of the Golden Rule.”
Amen; but when they do this, they will never ask for a Sunday law, nor will they prosecute nor persecute those who do not keep the day. Is not this so, Brother Occident? Think of it.
Attracting and Retaining Hearts
By Suard
We attract hearts by the qualities we display; we retain them by the qualities we possess.—Suard.