Earlier text: Question CornerInstitution of the Sabbath
By E. L. Cardey
The Sabbath, as a definite day of rest, is a very old institution, in fact as old as the earth itself. In this article we wish to contend for two things; first, that the Sabbath was instituted at the end of creation's week, and was then and there given to man for his observance. Second, that the Sabbath was made not only out of a day, but out of the seventh day. We will consider these under three heads; that is, positive testimony, Biblical inferences, and historical facts and tribal customs of different nations. In giving the account of creation, the inspired writer makes the statement, not in an argumentative way, but as stating a fact, that the heavens and earth were made in six days; the morning and evening constituting a day. Gen. 1: 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31. Then summing up the work of the first six days, the writer directly states: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” Gen. 2: 1-3. Throughout the inspired Word, the Sabbath is connected with creation. Moses so instructed the children of Israel: “And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that which ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.” Ex. 16: 23. “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed.” Ex. 31: 16, 17. Nehemiah, Isaiah and Paul believed it to have originated at creation. Neh. 9: 14; Isa. 58: 12; Heb. 4: 4. Jesus Himself looked upon the Sabbath as co-existing with the race, when He said, “The Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2: 27. From the flaming summit of Sinai, Jehovah commanded the observance of the Sabbath because “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. 20: 11. The Sabbath institution becomes then by divine command a memorial of creation. As such it must of necessity consist of a definite day; therefore it was made out of the seventh day. The institution and the definite seventh day must stand or fall together, for the earth could have but one birthday, and the Sabbath was instituted because of that event. In this connection the Saviour’s words, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,” are full of meaning. This statement was made in answer to the charge of the Pharisees that He had broken the Sabbath. God had in mind man’s need when He made it. But it was his intellectual and spiritual need, not his physical. This will be seen when it is remembered that the Sabbath institution preceded the entrance of sin into the world, and the need of physical rest. As a memorial of creation the seventh-day Sabbath was to meet his intellectual need, in that it would continually keep before him the evidence of the true God, and that He is the Creator—the “cause of things.” It could meet his spiritual needs because God the Creator had rested upon and blest that day. As the ground where Moses stood was holy, because God was present in the burning bush, and as Mount Sinai was made holy when the Lord communed with Moses, so that no man or beast might touch it lest they die, so the seventh-day Sabbath was made holy and sacred by the presence and blessing of God in it and upon it. Its blessing is transferred to man when he observes it. “Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it.” Isa. 56: 2. As an institution, the Sabbath is mentioned no fewer than ninety times in the Bible. In every case, either by direct or inferential statements, the institution is connected with the seventh day. That it was given to man at creation, there can be no doubt, for “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it”—set it apart for a holy use. Through all the ages past it has been used, and has been the day that has designated the ending of the week. Some Bible inferences may be used as conclusively as a definite statement, for in many places the inspired writers simply made reference to what is elsewhere clearly stated. The inference is also clear, that the Sabbath has been known and kept from creation all the way down to Christ, thus proving the antiquity of the institution, and the sacredness of its claims. Take first this statement in Gen. 26: 5: “Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” He obeyed God’s voice when he heard His call, and left the land of Ur. Heb. 11: 8. He kept His charge when he offered up his son Isaac. Heb. 11: 17. But when and how did he obey God’s commandments, statutes and6laws? The inference is that he knew God’s commandments; else how could he obey? Note the case of the children of Israel. In their servitude, they had forgotten God and His law. Moses was sent to them as their deliverer. His first effort was to restore in their hearts and lives the memorial of Jehovah’s creative work. Because of this, Pharaoh increased the burdens of Israel, and said to Moses, “The people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.” Ex. 5: 5. Unite with this the experience of Ex. 16: 19-30, where the Lord charged them with disobeying His law because they went out to gather manna on the Sabbath,—altho there is no previous record of that law having been given to them,—the evidence is that they knew about the Sabbath, and had been commanded to keep it before they came over the Red Sea. Many Bible commentators concur in this view. Consider, then, the Ten Commandments as given at Mount Sinai, where the fourth commandment is based on the act of creation; and the statement in Gen. 2: 2 that the Sabbath was “blessed and sanctified,”—set apart for man’s use—and the conclusion is that Moses and Abraham were simply doing what all others of God’s people had done from creation down—keeping the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath command. The foregoing evidence covers the time from creation to Sinai, in Sabbath observance, and exalts it as the test to Israel in their deliverance from Egypt, and the proof of loyalty to God in the wilderness. The week of seven days is the oldest existing monument of astronomical science. Years, months, and even days have changed their beginnings and endings in the onward advance of man, but the week of seven days has always stood the same. And it is worthy of note, that we now have the same day for starting and ending the week that men have always had. History records no time when the week was unknown in the East. Egypt, Babylonia, and Palestine had the seven-day week in their measurement of time; and going to the more remote parts of the earth, we find that the most distant and isolated tribes have preserved a knowledge of the week. The people of Java, according to Sir Stamford Raffles, had our week of seven days. They also had a week of five days to regulate their markets. (“History of Java,” London, 1830, Vol. 1. pp. 531, 532.) From every part of the globe, and among all races of men the week has been observed, and in most cases the week of seven days. In conclusion, we have found that the Sabbath institution stands for a definite day, a definite act of Jehovah, and for a definite purpose in the proper development of man. To destroy this definite seventh day as the Sabbath, means the destruction of that God-appointed institution; and to destroy that institution means to eliminate God as the Creator from the minds of men. And when men forget the God of Genesis and of Ps. 33: 9, who “spake, and it was done,” they are on the road that leads to skepticism, pantheism and heathenism. [The next article is “The Sabbath in the Law and in Christ.”] A Bible Study on Man
By L. A. Reed
VI. Eternal Life and Immortality
God’s purpose is that all His beings should have unending life. Man is not to be like a moth to flutter about a candle for a little time, singe his wings, and miserably perish. If man’s end is anything like this, it is not through the direct will and purpose of God. Paul, writing with reference to the change that is to come to the believer, speaks of that which is mortal being swallowed up of life, and then makes the direct statement, “Now He that wrought us for this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” 2 Cor. 5:5. Man was so wrought by God that every mortal element in him was to be swallowed up by that which is immortal. But through sin, through persistent sin, many men forfeit their hold on life, eternal life. Said Jesus, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” John 5:40. Some years ago a prominent minister in one of the large cities of the middle west accepted the doctrine of conditional immortality, immortality only through Christ. His entire congregation seemed to be in sympathy with him, and for fear of difficulty with the church, those over him did not see fit to remove him, or humiliate him in any way. A number of the other churches in the city, however, decided to hold special services to combat this so-called false doctrine. But the doctrine of conditional immortality is so plainly taught in the Bible that any one who had any understanding of the Bible could not be deceived by the statements of the ministers. I attended one of the meetings, and was amused to hear a minister, in his zealous efforts to show that the doctrine of conditional immortality was wrong, quote a portion of one of the very strongest texts that he could possibly have mentioned for the other side. However, he refrained from quoting the whole text. He made this statement: “Why not believe what Jesus says? He declares that ‘he that believeth on the Son hath eternal life.’” That portion of the scripture which he failed to quote reads: “But he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” And this is the very point that the minister before-mentioned had espoused as his belief,—in other words, that eternal life is conditional on our acceptance of Christ. Jesus is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” These are Christ’s own words: “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeyeth (or believeth) not the Son shall not see life.” On account of his sins the wrath of God threatens him with the wages of his transgression. To Nicodemus Jesus made just as plain a statement. He said, “Except one be born anew he can not see the kingdom of God;” and in further explanation of this text to Nicodemus He also declared that whosoever believeth may in Him—that is, in Christ—have eternal life. And again, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” And the conclusion is irresistible, that he who refuses Him will perish, and shall not have eternal life. Paul, in writing the second time to Timothy, introduces his letter with the statement that he is “an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, according to the promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus.” And John, in concluding his epistle in which he had written of some of the most wonderful and sacred things in the life of Christ, declares that he did it with one purpose in view. “These are written,” said he, “that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name.” It is also very apparent from Paul’s argument in the book of Galatians that life comes only to the believer, and that through Christ. He says: “If there had been a law given which could make alive [or give life], verily righteousness would have been of the law.” That is, a man’s own acts would purchase for him life. But no man of himself can obey the law, and therefore receive the life which obedience gives. He continues his argument: “But the Scripture shut up all things under sin [and therefore under the penalty of death], that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” Thus the law makes all outside of Christ guilty of sin. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God; because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin.” Rom. 3:19, 20. Every man is a sinner. The law condemns him as such; and “the wages of sin is death,” but Christ offers His life for the forfeited life of man. Christ met the penalty of the law for man. He tasted death for every man. Accepting Christ, His death satisfies the law which has condemned us as sinners worthy of death. And His life is granted to us because of His perfect obedience. Thus, and thus only, can an immortal life come to man. John reechoes the words of Christ. Speaking of eternal life, he says that eternal life is in the Son of God. 1 John 5:11. He then concludes: “He that hath the Son hath the life [eternal life]; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.” Verse 12. And then he gives this promise: “These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that we have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.” Verse 13. Over and over again in the Bible man confined to this life and time is declared to be mortal. Paul, speaking of the resurrection of those who believe in Christ, states that this mortal must put on immortality, and he declares that we all shall be changed, that is, all believers; for this is the subject concerning which he is speaking. Again: How is it possible that all humanity7have immortality, when we are plainly told that Christ “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”? 2 Tim. 1:10. Christ’s promise to Martha holds true for every believer in Him. To her Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on Me, tho he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.” John 11:25, 26. In conclusion let us say, that in previous articles we have shown that persistent sin brings eternal death,—“The wages of sin is death,” and “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” We have shown that this death is not an eternal torment, but destruction. The wicked perish, becoming as tho they had never been. We even read one text in which the wicked, it was said, would become ashes under the soles of the feet of the saints. Sin is to end, and those who persist in sin will end with it. Immortality comes only through Christ. It is received only by the one who receives Christ. Those who refuse Him refuse life. It was the intention of God that all His creatures should enjoy an eternal bliss and life that stretches with His life. But sin is rebellion, and He can not perpetuate rebels. Sin is itself the seed and the plant of death. When full-grown it produces death, and death is not life, and through sin no man can come into life. The way to life is clear. Christ is the Way, the Truth, the Life; He is the Resurrection and the Life; He brings immortality to light through His gospel; and of some He says, “Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life.” But His gracious invitation still sounds down through the avenue of time: “He that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life freely.” Rev. 22:17. The Angel of Patience
By J. G. Whittier
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest angel gently comes;
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet, in tenderest love, our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here. There's quiet in that angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance!
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure. Angel of patience! sent to calm
Our feverish brows with cooling palm;
To lay the storms of hope and fear,
And reconcile life's smile and tear;
The throbs of wounded pride to still,
And make our own our Father's will. O thou who mournest on thy way,
With longings for the close of day;
He walks with thee, that angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned!"
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well. 1. What is the only means of knowing sin? “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. 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.” Rom. 7: 7. 2. How did the sin in Paul’s life appear to him before he saw himself in the light of the law? “But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.” Rom. 7: 8. NOTE.—“Sin was dead,” in Paul before he became converted. It was not till he viewed this sin in the light of “the commandment” that he saw “wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.” 3. In what further words does Paul tell of his experiences with the law as he was being aroused from his sleep in sin? “For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” Rom. 7: 9-11. 4. What is Paul’s conclusion, then, concerning the character of the law? “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Rom. 7: 12. 5. What was the experience of the apostle in observing the law? “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” Rom. 7: 22. 6. How does the psalmist say the godly man will relate himself to the law of God? “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.” Ps. 1: 1, 2. 7. What is said in another one of the Psalms of the delights of the law to the believer? “O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” Ps. 119: 97. Unselfish Love
By J. W. Lowe
FORTUNATE and blest is he or she whose motives are always prompted by unselfish love to God and man. However foreign it may be to our own natural inclination, unselfish love should be the only motive prompting each and every act of our lives. It was this unselfish love in our heavenly Father and His Son that led Them to make the sacrifice that They did, for Their creatures who had gone astray. This same love in our hearts is alone that which can fit us for the courts of heaven and the society of angels that have never sinned. Unselfish love is the only thing that can insure to us eternal life and happiness on the earth redeemed, and is in reality the only thing that can insure happiness in this present world. J. W. Lowe. “ONE watch set right will do to set many by; on the other hand, one that goes wrong may be the means of misleading a whole neighborhood, and the same may be said of the example we each set to those around us.” Communion With God Brings Happiness
By T. Pearson
NOTHING but a living, sensible communion with God can displace heaviness from the heart and shed happiness over the life.—T. Pearson. The Two Seals
By Delwin Rees Bachner
While o'er the sepulcher strict soldiers keep
Close vigils, angels wing from Heaven's throne
By whose sword-rays the Roman guard are mown
Unto the ground like tares that sickles reap,
And piled in a disheveled random heap;
The seal is broken and the cumbrous stone
Removed. Ah! well the dragon might have known
He could not keep God in eternal sleep.
The fiend who made our Lord bleed bitter tears
And sealed at last His corpse within a tomb,
Unconscious, spiritless, three solemn days,
Must soon be sealed himself a thousand years
Within the earth he wrecked, until his doom,
When, like dry stubble, all his frame will blaze. O, My Heart It Longs!
By George Willard
O, my heart it longs for a life that is free
From sickness and death and sin.
O, my heart it cries for a better land
Where no sorrows can enter in. While storms and wrecks and perilous times
And trouble and strife increase,
There comes a cry from the worldly-wise—
A cry of safety and peace. The nations are angry, the world is mad,
Truth is sold in the world's great mart;
Soon Jesus will come to redeem His own,
The faithful and pure in heart. O, Master, come and Thy work cut short,
For the cry of the poor and oppressed,
The sigh of the sorrowed, the moan of the sick,—
They all beg for peace and for rest. Begone, All Doubts
By Lephia Bryant Larson
God knows what's for my best; He'll give me just the things I need. He'll plant no longing in my breast He has not power to feed. Begone! all doubt; Faith is planted; God gave the precious seed. Here once your poisonous runners killed out life's flowers indeed. Begone! for Faith is planted,—God waters it with His Word; And the fruit of the field shall be given wholly unto the Lord! Darkly rose the guilty morning,
When, the King of Glory scorning,
Raged the fierce Jerusalem.
See the Christ, His cross upbearing,
See Him stricken, spit on, wearing
The thorn-plaited diadem. Not the crowd whose cries assailed Him,
Nor the hands that rudely nailed Him,
Slew Him on the cursed tree
Ours the sin from heaven that called Him,
Ours the sin whose burden galled Him
In the sad Gethsemane. For our sins, of glory emptied,
He was fasting, lone, and tempted,
He was slain on Calvary.
Yet He for His murderers pleaded;
Lord, by us that prayer is needed,
We have pierced, yet trust in Thee. In our wealth and tribulation,
By Thy precious cross and passion,
By Thy blood and agony,
By Thy glorious resurrection,
By Thy Holy Ghost’s protection,
Make us Thine eternally. The Abundant Life
By John Dempster Hammond
Abundant life, He said, I freely give;
Because I live, ye, too, shall also live.
Hallelujah, He is risen.
Upon Thy naked word, O Master mine,
I stand, and firmly link my life with Thine—
Eternal life with Thee, my Lord divine.
Hallelujah, He is risen, He is risen indeed.
—John Dempster Hammond. We lose much in our study and contemplation of Christianity and God’s revelation in His Book by failing to recognize the essential unity of the divine government and plan of salvation. God is one. He is not divided or inconsistent. Some of His words may on the surface, taken in and of themselves alone, seem to be contradictory. Some of His acts may seem inconsistent with His character, but when understood they are divine paradoxes, notes and tones in the great diapason of the gospel which produce marvelous harmony. God is not one thing yesterday and another to-day. Yesterday we may have had a revelation of His mercy and long-suffering. To-day may be a revelation of His justice, or the working in physical effects of persistent transgression, but when clearly understood we can see that both mercy and justice are essential elements in His great perfect character of love guided by infinite wisdom. In one place we may have a wonderful revelation of God’s character in precept, in another a revelation of His character in promise; but both promise and precept are better understood, their beauty and breadth, depth and height, better appreciated if we will but blend them together as His Spirit ever will do in the heart of the receiver. God’s truth is not many truths, but one truth. In the scores of times the word occurs in our English Bible it is never in the plural. We never find “truths” (plural) in all the Word; it is invariably in the singular—truth. Why, then, should we talk of old truths, new truths, various truths, as if there were so many separate truths which God has locked in separate compartments of His great temple? It is true that the term is often used by writers or speakers in an accommodated sense. They do not mean us to understand that they hold these things as separate and distinct, and yet the very language itself conveys that idea, and at the same time perverts the clearer thoughts of the speaker or writer. The term “truths” is used to refer to different doctrines which Christians hold, but in this, also, we fail to grasp the divine unity, for God has not many doctrines, but one. In the Bible the plural, “doctrines,” is used only of false teaching and teachers. Never once do we read of doctrines according to godliness, but the doctrine—the teaching—which is according to godliness. The doctrine, the teaching, of the Bible is one indivisible body of teaching, not divided or divisible. We can not carve it up or segregate its parts, and so accept this doctrine and reject that; believe this truth essential, but that unimportant and non-essential. Just as soon as we take such positions as that we cut into the very body of vital truth and vital teaching. Faith in God is that which will accept His teaching, His truth; and, accepting that truth, if the heart is true it accepts everything there is in it. Accepting His teaching accepts everything there is in that teaching, all its various parts, phases, ramifications in present and future. All these phases of truth that men are inclined to divide up into so many different doctrines are merely avenues which lead to the very heart of the great all-encompassing truth, Christ Jesus. Of this we shall have more to say hereafter. We hope that our readers will take these simple suggestions and begin anew a study of the divine Word, the divine truth, the divine teaching. They will find a blessed strength and unity which will be seen in no other way. Much time, money, and thought are given to the outward adorning of the person. Much is spent on fine houses and elaborate furnishings for them. A great part of the thought of many, very many persons, is spent on plans for display. But none of this sort of thing in itself brings satisfaction. For after the individual has exhausted all his resources, it is many times the case that another has outstripped him and he is left far behind, loaded down with disappointment. How much better it is to follow the injunction of our Creator in His Word. He says: “In like manner, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained by the behavior of their wives; beholding your chaste behavior coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner aforetime the holy women also, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose children ye now are, if ye do well, and are not put in fear by any terror.” The instruction in the foregoing is for the wife. But the principle contained in the text is of universal application. When this text is referred to, it is often the case that discussion turns upon the injunction for wives to be in subjection to their husbands, and the real lesson of the text is lost. Of course it passes without saying that the Bible nowhere teaches that it is the duty of a woman to be a slave to her husband. Slavish subjection to a brutal or inhuman husband is not what the text is calling for, as other passages of scripture will abundantly show. The text calls us to receive an inward adorning of mind and heart that will command the respect of even the unbelieving companion. What adorning is to be compared to this inward adorning that is prescribed by the great Teacher and Saviour! It is more than mere intellectual training. The intellect is trained, to be sure, but beyond that there is a culture of heart that gives a divinely artistic mould to everything the individual does or says. The gross and the unkind act are eliminated. The grudging and the faultfinding have given place to the adornments of the indwelling of divine love. The soul is brought up to the place where it feels the presence of the divine Father. Who has not met persons that were dressed in the so-called exquisite refinements of fashion, and who were living in houses that were gorgeously built, and elaborately furnished, and yet when he came to associate with the individuals he has found them disappointing in the extreme? Their conversations and habits of life show them at once to have only the outward adorning. Their vision is narrow. They are looking merely to this world. They seek only for display, but how shattered and empty are their lives. On the other hand, who has not met persons that did not seem to be particularly attractive at first, but as he came to know them, found that they were living on an elevated plane. They are not planning for this life merely, but are reaching out through the inspiring precepts and promises of God for eternity. The whole course of their lives is an inspiration and an uplift. Their adorning is that of the heart and of the inner life. Our text quoted at the beginning of these paragraphs should inspire us to so live that the inner adorning of our lives may win the unbelievers with whom we come in contact to the satisfying joys of the Christian’s life.