Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1893
Editorial.
By Editor
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable."—2 Tim. 3:16.
THE man who makes man his strength is trusting in one no stronger than himself, a broken reed at best, whose life is as a vapor or as the dew of the morning. But he who makes God his strength has an unfailing refuge. He who believes a doctrine because God says it, whoever may be the weak instrument through whom the light is sent, will not be affected by the failures and shipwrecks of others. He knows in whom he has believed, and is persuaded that what God has begun he is able also to finish in glory and perfection. There is nothing sure outside of God. He never can fail. And the one who makes the Lord his refuge shall never be confounded or made ashamed.
"Is not this Joseph's son?" It was thus the Nazarites reasoned after they had listened, and even "wondered at the gracious words" which proceeded out of the mouth of Christ. And in thus reasoning they grieved away the Spirit, darkened their own understandings, and rejected the gracious message sent to save them. Instead of looking to the message, they looked to the messenger. By what authority could Joseph's son instruct them? was he not one of them? and had they not known him from his youth? and was it not the height of presumption for him to thus teach them and claim for himself the Messiahship? These were the questions implied by their query. How often to-day do we look at the humble instrument instead of the message he bears. The truth may fall from his lips in burning fire, and conscience may be awakened. Then Satan presents to us the messenger. We hear the oddity of his speech, the peculiar construction of his language; we see the antiqueness of his clothing, and, withal, we remember his humble parentage and humble station. Can God speak through such a man? rings in our ears. "Is this Joseph's son?" Yea, it may be Joseph's son indeed, but there may come to us through his instrumentality a message which will prove the savor of life unto life or the savor of death unto death. Let us take heed how we hear, and how we judge. The messenger may be of clay, but the message may be the words of life from the King of kings and Lord of lords.
NOAH by his life of righteousness "condemned the world." Had no one in the days of the antediluvians lived a righteous life, the wicked inhabitants of that degenerate period might have reasoned with some show of plausibility that it was impossible to do right. But the fact that Noah in the midst of abounding wickedness, and with the same human frailties, lived for God, was an evidence that every other person of that period might have done the same, and with equally gratifying results. Thus by the few gathered out of each period of the earth's history will the justice and mercy of God's grace be upheld in demonstration of the fact that his grace was all sufficient in every age, in every nation, and under every imaginable combination of circumstances.
SENTIMENT VERSUS PRINCIPLE.
SENTIMENT is a very good thing when it is backed by principle, but without principle it is most dangerous, swayed by, and subject to, every demagogue who possesses the skill to play upon the varied emotions of unthinking humanity. Many a mob swayed by sentiment has put to death innocent men. Many a time have assemblies decided against their own best good by yielding to the emotion of the moment. And the majority of human beings are deciding their eternal destiny in the same way.
It is easy to be moved by sentiment. As a general thing it is with the current of humanity. One rarely, if ever, finds himself alone. But principle often costs the sacrifice of self, of sentiment, of emotion, of expediency, of everything but truth and right. All this is manifest in the religio-political drift at the present time.
Every intelligent, genuine American who is not bound by religious creed or blinded by bigotry, will say on general principles, imbibed from his forefathers, that every kind of religious legislation is wrong in principle, unjust in its execution, and contrary to the principles of equality and liberty on which this government was founded.
On general principles every intelligent Christian will say that religious legislation is contrary to the very nature of Christianity, contrary to the golden rule, contrary to the teachings and life of Christ.
As far and as long as these principles have borne sway, America has been the land of the free. Jew and heathen, Christian and infidel, Protestant and Catholic, have, each and all, worshiped God according to the dictates of their own conscience; and if these principles were always to remain a moulding power, religious liberty would always be assured to every class, religious, unreligious, and irreligious.
But these principles have ceased to mould men and public life. America has had a time of unexampled peace and prosperity. Her principles of liberty are held as beautiful legends and traditions, to be sung and recited on great memorial days. Her great so-called orthodox churches have prospered, and with their riches have come pride, ambition, and love of power. In their earlier days they were content to bear the warnings of God's word to the sinner, or to him of contrary creed, and beseech him to turn from his evil way and live. Now in their pride they utter the decrees of their own creed-bound conventions, and threaten the sinner with civil penalties, tradesmen with boycott, and the office seeker with retirement from office if they dare disobey the mandates of the church.
In no one thing is this yielding of principle seen more than in the matter of Sunday laws. The passing of Sunday laws is religious legislation, it matters not by what term it may be called. It is in the interests of a religious class who observe that day. It is in the interests of a religious institution exalted by this class. It thereby exalts this class and this institution above those who do not believe in Sunday laws, and is therefore class legislation, and unjust legislation, inasmuch as it militates directly against the equality of man as taught by Christ and claimed by the founders of this government. It makes a perfectly legitimate and praiseworthy deed on other days, as, for instance, honest work for the support of one's family, criminal if done on Sunday, simply and solely to suit the sentiments of a religious class, which profess the golden rule but will not keep it. It deprives the laboring man, who has kept the seventh day, of one-sixth of his time or income, simply because of the religious views of his neighbors who are in the majority. And the sad thing is that "Christians" are at the head and front of this antichristian movement.
The reason why they stand there may be learned from the word of God and demonstrated by the history of the past eighteen hundred years. Christ sums it all up in the expression, "These things they will do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor Me." John 16: 3. If men knew the754Spirit of Christ, they would never dream of coercing others, for they would know by experience that only the Spirit of God could be effectual in converting men. If they knew the truth of Christ, they would know that only by the truth could men be sanctified, and that it was absolutely impossible to define or confine God's truth by creeds, or to enforce it by human law. If men knew the power of Christ, they would know that no earthly power could accomplish aught for him in the characters of men or in enforcing his truth among men, and for an earthly power to attempt it would be to usurp his authority, and become antichrist.
History teaches that the first step in apostasy was always departure from the truth. The next step was the making of a creed in which the departure from the truth was included. The third step was asking for civil power to enforce the errors of the creed. For it is always error that is enforced by law. Never in all the history of the church has civil law been asked to enforce a Bible truth. It has always been some error, or some perversion of Bible truth. This is the case to-day in connection with Sunday laws. Sunday has not only no foundation as a Sabbath, or holy day, in God's sacred word, but it appears as a usurper, that which can be established only by the overthrow of an express command of God. It is not only extra-biblical but antibiblical, not only extra-christian, but antichristian. There goes with it the spirit of antichrist, which is the spirit of self-exaltation, oppression, and persecution.
It is sentiment, sentiment for a hoary tradition, but not the principles of truth and justice, which is behind this religio-political movement. Sentiment goes with the masses, swings with the tide, panders to the perversity of the people, holds more sacred the erroneous practice of a good but ignorantly erring parent or church than it does the truth of God. Principle will stand for right and justice though the heavens fall. It will espouse the cause of the weak, the oppressed, the wronged. It will stand for God, though it stand alone with a maddened world before it. Reader, where do you stand in this great struggle? on the side of unholy sentiment and selfish interest? or on the side of God and his truth?
A NEED OF FURTHER "STUDY."
By W. N. G.
OUR attention has been called to a copy of the Pacific Baptist, of date May 4, 1893, containing an article entitled "A Study of the Sabbath Question," by Rev. I. W. Read, of Seattle, Wash. We are requested to notice some of the results of the aforesaid "study," and will do so as briefly as possible consistent with comprehensive comment. As a sample of the arguments presented we give the following:—
There are those who, in relation to the Sabbath, desire to live under the law both in letter and spirit, while others deny the binding force of the letter, but unhesitatingly accept the spirit of the law. It is the desire in this study to prove, if possible, that neither the letter nor the spirit of the law, as such, is binding upon the Christian. He is above and beyond law. He lives under a system of grace and not works. The ten commandments as given by Moses to Israel are not in force to-day. They were given under a system of works; we live under a system of grace. For one, I have no desire to live under the law,—I have something better.
It is evident that the author here quoted is laboring under a misunderstanding as to what it is to be "under the law." This misunderstanding has led him into a perfect slough of error, filling five columns of the paper. He is apparently beating around Rom. 6:14, or, rather, a part of that verse, as those who use it for the purpose of making void the law usually pervert it by quoting only the expression "ye are not under the law, but under grace." Let us read the whole verse: "For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." Now what is sin? Let John answer: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. Then those who transgress the law are they over whom sin has dominion; and those over whom sin has not dominion are of course they who obey the law, and are therefore "not under the law."
Let us now read the next verse: "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." Bear in mind that "sin is the transgression of the law," and we have Paul's question thus: "Shall we transgress the law because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." The same question is asked in the first verse of the same chapter: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Remembering again John's definition of sin, we have Paul asking, "Shall we continue to transgress the law, that grace may abound?" and himself answering, "God forbid." But John is not alone in defining sin as the transgression of the law; Paul himself says that "where no law is, there is no transgression" (Rom. 4:15), and "sin is not imputed when there is no law" (chapter 5:13).
Returning to the expression, "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" the question arises, What is it to be dead to sin? Verse 11 shows that it is equivalent to being "alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Without Christ all are under condemnation of the law, "for all have sinned" (transgressed), and the "wages of sin is death." But "by grace are ye saved through faith" (Eph. 2:8); that brings us out from the condemnation of the law. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:1. To this add Gal. 5:18: "If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law." Therefore those who are not led by the Spirit, who walk "after the flesh," sinners (transgressors of the law), are under the law, and not under grace. Faith takes us out from "under the law"—by securing our pardon for its transgression, but does that destroy the law? Let Paul answer: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." No act of God could more forcibly declare the existence and force of the law than to pardon its transgressor; and no act of man could more emphatically acknowledge his obligation to the law than to confess himself a sinner and ask for pardon; for, as before quoted, "where no law is, there is no transgression." Again the same apostle says, "I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." Chapter 7:7.
As to the assertion that the Christian "is above and beyond law," that is equivalent to saying that he is "above and beyond" the Lawgiver. We read of a certain party "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4), but he is called "that man of sin," "the son of perdition."
The author says he has "no desire to live under the law;" but his proposed remedy is disobedience. Neither do we "desire to live under the law;" but our proposed remedy is obedience. "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." But we pass to another quotation which, with its context, is simply the outgrowth of the former error:—
Christ was the end and the fulfillment of the law, as is clearly set forth in the New Testament. Christ said, as recorded in Luke 16:16, "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached," clearly showing that men now had something better to think about and act upon.
Further on, the author conveys the idea that the "end" was the stopping place. He seems to lose sight of the fact that the word "end" has other significations. It here means "the object aimed at" (see Webster), as in Rom. 14:9, "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living;" also, as in 1 Peter 1:9, "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." The object in view is that the whole creation should have the perfection of Christ, who kept his Father's commandments (John 15:10), and of whom it was written, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart" (Ps. 40:8). Thus "Christ is the end [object] of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." Rom. 10:4. The expression, "the law and the prophets were until John," does not mean that they ended with John. But when Christ came, of whom the prophets spake, there was an additional feature of the proclamation of salvation. That John continued preaching the law is shown in that he called upon men to "repent" of sin (the transgression of the law), and denounced sin in all its forms. To this he added,755"for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
On Luke 16:16 Dr. Adam Clarke says: "The law and the prophets continued to be the sole teachers till John came, who first [in its fuller development] began to proclaim the glad tidings of the kingdom of God." When Christ began preaching, his message was the same as that of John, "Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matt. 4:17. If the law were not still in force, there could be no sin for them to repent of; for, as already shown, "where no law is, there is no transgression." On the day of Pentecost, also, when the people, being convicted of sin, asked what they should do, Peter, speaking under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, replied: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." What sins, if the law ended with John the Baptist? Again, in Acts 17:30, Paul tells the Athenians that God "commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Then the law—whose transgression constitutes sin, and without which "sin is not imputed"—must be binding upon "all men everywhere."
We make one more quotation, just to show how naturally the author, having started wrong, was led into other errors in order to maintain his position:—
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Matt. 5:17. Where a thing is fulfilled it is not destroyed, but is simply a fact of history.
The remainder of this fifth chapter of Matthew shows that Christ laid more stress upon the law than had been done before, showing that it not only takes cognizance of the outward acts but of the thoughts of the heart. Christ, on another occasion, summarized the law into two leading thoughts, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself." Luke 10:27. Is this "simply a fact of history," or is it duty yet? The question needs no answer. But this summary of the law is, in Matt. 22:37-40, put in the form of "two commandments," and the Lord says that on these "hang all the law and the prophets." Every principle of the law is involved in this brief summary; hence "love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:10), "and this is love, that we walk after his commandments" (2 John 6). It is not enough that Christ fulfill the law. He is our example, and in him it is made possible for us to "walk even as he walked;" and "he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk." 1 John 2:6. The law itself could not help the transgressor to become obedient; therefore "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin [the transgression of the law] in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4.
Thus we see there is yet considerable fulfilling to be done before the law of God becomes "simply a fact of history." It is clear that the student to whose conclusions we have here referred would do well to make one more "study," the next time from a correct standpoint.
Doubt and Unbelief
DOUBTING is simply unbelief encouraged. When one walks in a plain path he has no doubt about being in the right way. But when he steps aside and allows his mind to become absorbed in this, that, or the other allurement, he becomes uncertain about the way. If such a wanderer would turn about and earnestly seek the way from which he wandered, doubt would soon be dispelled. But if he persists in following the uncertain path, and seeking for further temporal gratification, he but encourages the doubts. He who has once tasted the goodness of God cannot say that he is ignorant of the way. If confession of sin, repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ assured confidence once, it will do so again. Anyone who has experienced this confidence once, knows how to get it again. He knows also that his doubts are the result of his having departed from Christ, who is the Way. Hence to remain in doubt is to willfully reject Christ.
Doctrinal.
By Eliza H. Norton
"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."—John 7:17.
ACQUAINTED WITH GOD.
BY ELIZA H. NORTON.
WITHIN, without, above the din
Of tumult and of strife,
I hear the voice of One I love,
I hear the words of life.
The secret place is holy ground,
For Jesus meets me there.
Communion sweet and blest I find,
When low I bow in prayer.
Though infinite, unseen, afar,
Yet, Saviour, thou art mine.
To talk with thee as friend to friend
Is privilege divine.
So near, so dear, no one can know,
But those who've felt the same.
Acquainted with thee, O my God,
I praise thy holy name.