The Old Covenant.—The Sabbath—The Law—The Commonwealth Of Israel, And Christ.
The original term, rendered “Testament” and “Covenant,” occurs thirty-three times in the New Testament. Greenfield defines it thus: “Any disposition, arrangement, institution, or dispensation; hence a testament, will; a covenant, mutual promises on mutual conditions, or promises with conditions annexed.” Secondly, “A body of laws and precepts to which certain promises are annexed, promises to which are annexed certain laws; the books in which the divine laws are contained, the Old Testament, and especially the Pentateuch.” Upon a careful examination of these definitions it will be seen at once that the term “Testament” is a good translation. This is confirmed, in Paul's letter to the Hebrews, in the inter-changeable use of the terms “Will,” “Covenant” and “Testament.” Our Sabbatarian brethren claim, that the Old Covenant, which was done away, was the verbal agreement of the Children of Israel to keep the law of the decalogue. But this definition is not sufficient. It excludes almost all that was current in its use. It renders it improper to call it a “Testament” or “Will,” because fathers make testaments or wills without the consent of their children, and these are called dispositions of estates. Their definition of the term also makes the “Covenant” depend upon the will of man, for covenants, in the [pg 162] sense of agreements, have nothing to do with those who do not enter into them. Neither can men be regarded as transgressing a covenant, in the sense of an agreement, unless they have first placed themselves under its obligations. So, if these men are right in their definition of the Old Covenant, they are wrong in trying to fasten its conditions upon all mankind. Their logic also excludes, from all the promises of the covenant, all those who were incapable of making an agreement. Hence, infants were left to the uncovenanted mercies of God. And as for the wicked, who never agreed to keep those commandments, poor souls! they must be dealt with as violators of a contract to which they never became a party.
These absurdities, which are legitimately drawn from their own premises, drive us to the conclusion that their whole theory, upon the covenant question, is wrong. The apostle Paul says we are the children of a covenant, which he denominates “The free woman.” “She is the mother of us all.” But, according to Sabbatarian logic, they are the children of two covenants, or women. How is this? One good mother is sufficient. When they tell you that the old covenant, which was done away, was the people's agreement to keep the ten commandments, remember that they, by their own showing, set up the same old covenant by agreeing to keep the ten commandments. So it is done away, and it is not done away. That is, if the people say, “We will keep and do them,” it is established, but if they say, “We will not,” it is abolished. Again, if it was the people's agreement that was done away, and the ten commandments were the conditions of that agreement, then they also are of no force, for the conditions of an agreement are always void when the contract is nullified. Again, if the Lord had nothing to do in causing the Old Covenant to be done away, how did it pass away by the action of one party to it? And how can men enter into it without the concurring assent of the party of the second part? Accept the Sabbatarian definition of the term covenant, and it legitimately follows that none were ever in that covenant save those who held converse with Jehovah, through Moses, saying, “All [pg 163] these things will we observe and do.” It is an old, trite saying, “that it takes two to make an agreement.” And it also takes two to abrogate an agreement. But these friends of the seventh day say, The people rendered that old covenant void by their wickedness, that they were at fault, that God never abrogated it, that He always stood firm in reference to its conditions and promises, holding the people to its obligations. Then how was it done away? We will let Zechariah answer this question: “And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day; and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.”
Judas Iscariot sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver, cast the money down at the feet of the priests in the temple; the priests took it and purchased the potters' field to bury strangers in. And “in that day” the covenant of God was broken by the Lord. Now, if the Lord broke that old covenant, it follows that no man enters into it without one more concurring action upon His part. Upon what mountain has He appeared and reënacted this covenant? And if it was simply the people's agreement to keep the ten commandments, how did He make it with all the people of Israel, seeing many of them were incapable of entering into an agreement? The truth is this, the Lord made a covenant in the sense of a “Testament” or institution. This sense alone admits of the irresponsible in its provisions. In the argument from analogy, drawn from the introduction of the New Testament, our position is confirmed. The Savior's death gave force to this testament or will, without any concurring action upon the part of any man or number of men. And it is a covenant in the sense in which Greenfield defines the term, that is, in the sense of a [pg 164] testament, or will. This also admits of covenanted or bequeathed blessings for all the incapable.
The Sabbatarian view of the term covenant, if applied to the “New Covenant,” cuts off all who do not enter into this “contract.” But there is no reason in calling either testament a “contract.” An earthly father may incorporate, among other things, conditions, in his testament, or will, and it is in force, by his death, even though his children find fault with it. So it mattered not whether any man in ancient Israel was satisfied with that ancient “testament.” But the Bible nowhere limits the term covenant to the people's agreement to keep the decalogue. On the contrary, it is said, “And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.” Deut. iv, 13. These commandments were after the tenor of all that was given by Moses, as we learn in the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus. After Moses had given many precepts, the Lord said, “Write thou these words; for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” This covenant, or testament, like all other institutions which the Lord established with the children of men, is accompanied with reasons for its existence, and all the laws and instructions necessary to carry out its principles. The reasons were placed upon the tables of stone along with the commandments. When Sabbatarians hang up their copy of those tables, it is always a mutilated, partial copy. The whole is given to us in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy. No Seventh-day Adventist dare exhibit the full copy before his audience, unless he does it at the peril of his teaching. Here it is: “I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other Gods before me. Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them nor serve them: for I the [pg 165] Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt 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, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of 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. Honor thy father and thy mother as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Neither shalt thou commit adultery. Neither shalt thou steal. Neither shalt thou bear false-witness against thy neighbor. Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife. Neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field, or his man-servant, or maid-servant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's. These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly, in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more, and he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and delivered them unto you.”
Thus we have a fac simile of the law upon the tables of stone. The terms employed in this law limit it to the Jewish people, a people who were servants in Egypt. This was the “testament,” “institution,” or “covenant” given at Sinai, and it was after the tenor of all the rest that was given. It is worthy of notice, that there is not a penalty in all that was written [pg 166] upon those tables. And yet there were terrible penalties inflicted for a violation of its precepts. How is this? Was it all there was of God's law? If so, where shall we go to find its penalties? This covenant is spoken of in Galatians, the fourth chapter. It is called “the bond woman,” that was cast out. In the third chapter of Corinthians it is termed “the ministration of condemnation,” and “the ministration of death written and engraven in stones, which was done away.” Which Zechariah said was broken by the Lord in the day of the terrible tragedy of the cross of Christ.
The multiplicity of passages in the New Testament bearing upon this great fact, causes our legalists in religion to shift about most wonderfully. At one time, the people's agreement to keep the law was the covenant that was done away. At another, it was the act of executing the penalty of death that was set aside. At another, it was the glory of Moses' face that was done away. And at another, it was none of all these, but it was the ceremonial law of Moses that was done away.
All these positions were taken by one man, in one discussion with the writer of these lines. All such turns are cheap; it requires no great wisdom to accommodate yourself in this manner to the force of circumstances. The fact that the “first covenant” was a “testament,” or a body of laws with certain promises annexed, as well as penalties, is evident from Paul's statement in the ninth chapter of his letter to the Hebrews. He says, “Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary, for there was a tabernacle made; the first wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the show-bread; which is called the sanctuary.” The distinction which our friends make between “Moses' law” and “God's law,” as they are pleased to express it, is not only unscriptural, the two phrases being inter-changeable, but also absurd. Moses gave all, that these men are pleased to term his law, in the name of the Lord. The law of the passover, found in the twelfth chapter of Exodus, is prefaced with these words: “And the Lord God said unto Moses.” In the twenty-fifth chapter of the same book we have the laws [pg 167] concerning the ark, the tabernacle, the priestly service, and all are introduced with this saying: “And the Lord spake unto Moses.” Moses never gave a law in his own name. Neither did he give one of his own in the name of the Lord, because it would have cost him his life. The Lord had guarded this point in the following: “But the prophet which presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.” Now one of two things is evident: first, all the laws that Moses gave in the name of the Lord were His; or, secondly, Moses violated the law governing the prophet. And if the record is false on this account, how can we trust it in other respects? It is as easy to turn God out of all the pentateuch, and put Moses into it, as to maintain the proposition that Moses had a law of his own. Sabbatarians act the part of the unbeliever in getting the Lord out of the law that was done away, and Moses into it. All that is accredited to the Lord was His, otherwise the record is untrustworthy. If our friend's position is true, it follows that Moses is the sole author of the sacrificial system of blood, without which there was no remission, and thus the ancient remedial scheme falls, being without divine sanction. But the Lord claims all that our friends hand over to Moses. The following phrases are uttered with reference to the priests and other things: “My priest,” “My sacrifice,” “Mine altar,” “Mine offering,” 1st Samuel, ii, 27-29; “The Lord's pass-over,” Exodus, xii, 11; “The feasts of the Lord,” Lev. xxiii; “My sanctuary and my Sabbaths,” Ezekiel, xxiii, 38. The manner in which Sabbatarians emphasize the phrase “My Sabbath,” and “My holy day,” is well calculated to mislead the unsuspecting, but those who are schooled in biblical literature will regard it as mere rant, cheap theology, mere display! All that Moses gave, as law, was from the Lord, was His. “The Lord came down upon Sinai, and spake to them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and made known to them His holy Sabbath, and commanded precepts, statutes and laws, by the hand of His servant Moses.” Nehemiah, ix, 13, 14.
The seventh-day Sabbath was not given to the Gentile world. It would require just as plain and positive legislation to bind it upon us as it did to establish it in Israel. It was a sign between God and the Hebrews. Ezek. xxxi, 13-18. “Moreover, also, I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah that doth sanctify them.” If there are any Gentile Christians upon the earth who think it is essential to know that it was the Lord that sanctified the children of Israel, set them apart from the surrounding nations, I would say to such, It is sufficient to your salvation that you know the Lord, as manifested in the flesh in the person of Christ Jesus, and that you love and obey him. I can not see that the seventh-day Sabbath, as a sign upon a Gentile, would tell the truth, for the Lord never sanctified the Gentiles in the sense of setting them apart from the surrounding nations. Again, if our friends could succeed in making it universal, it would cease to be a sign. It was a national badge, or sign, between God and the Hebrews. Its object was to keep in their memory that which was true of them alone. “Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm, therefore the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” Deut. v. Can any Gentile obey this instruction? It is impossible! Moses said, “Behold I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep, therefore, and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding, in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day.” Deut. iv, 5. The authority and glory of Christ forbid all such Judaizing as that which we speak against. “He was given of God to be head over all things to the church.” “And He is head of all principality and power.” The Father put all things under Him. [pg 169] The prophet Isaiah said, “He shall not fail, nor be discouraged till He hath set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for His law.” Ch. xlii, 4. And Paul said, “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Gal. vi, 2.
The object of law is to regulate the exemplification of principles. Some principle is exemplified in every act that man performs. And one principle may be in a great variety of acts. The principle of hatred is exemplified in a great many different actions; and the principle of love to God is manifested, or exemplified, in every act of obedience to God. So the spiritual may be brought out under different dispensations, and by different laws, while it remains always the same. Indeed, principles are unchangeable; they belong to the nature of things. Covenants, priesthoods, dispensations and laws have changed, but principles, never. So the moral objective of every law is the same, viz., to bring out and develop the spiritual in man. To accomplish this great end it is necessary that the evil principles of a carnal, or fleshly nature, should be restrained by the penal sanctions of law, and the principles of man's higher nature brought out by its motives of good. Such being the nature of principles, and the facts of law, Paul says, “We know that the law is spiritual.” And again, “The law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” “Do we then make void law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish law.”
I have left the article out of this text because it is not in the original. B. Wilson translates the verse in these words: “Do we then nullify law through the faith. By no means; but we establish law.” The negative use of law is to restrain the evil; and the affirmative is to bring out the good, the spiritual. So, without any interference with the spiritual of any law that ever was, either divine or human, we have a better covenant, or testament, than the old testament; one that is established upon better promises, which contains “A new and living way into the Holiest,” which Paul says, “Is heaven itself.” This new way was consecrated through the flesh of Christ. The rule of life in this way is the “Law of Christ.” [pg 170] It is a better law, for us, because its precepts are not limited to our neighbor. The following is a part, at least, of the contrast:
the decalogue given to israel.
“Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbor. Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife. Neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field, or his man-servant, or his maid-servant, his ox or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill.”
the law of christ bound upon the world.
“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. But I say unto you, love your enemies. If thou mayest be made free use it rather. Be ye not the servants of men. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet. Whosoever looketh upon a woman and lusteth after her hath committed adultery already in his heart.”
I have presented a sufficient amount of each law to show you a part of the great contrast which exists on account of the ancient law being given to a people set apart from all the surrounding nations by a legal wall interfering with them in their social walks in life. That law was sufficient for all practical purposes among the Jews. But, since that “Middle wall of partition” has been taken down, it is utterly useless to talk about a law limited to your neighbor being any longer worthy of God, or a perfect rule for man's conduct in his associations with all men. Indeed, it never was a law regulating a man's conduct with all men. The middle wall was taken out of the way, and Jews and Gentiles have shook hands in Christian fellowship under the new institution. Let us see how this was brought about. When the law brings about a separation, nothing short of law can undo it, and bring about the union of the parties separated. But, as authority, that controls law, is alone competent to remove legal results, we must look for this, as a matter of necessity, lying at the foundation of the new institution. It is just there that we find it in these words: [pg 171] “All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” The result of obedience to this law of Christ is expressed in these words: “But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity; even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” Eph. ii, 13-15. The God of Abraham said unto Rebecca, “Two nations are in thy womb.” Gen. xxv, 23. This language had its fulfillment in the decendants of Jacob and Esau. The political history of the children of Jacob begins at Sinai with their beginning as a nation among the surrounding nations. The law given at Sinai was a political law, for it was addressed to a community, pertained to a community, and was accepted by a community.
Such is a political law in the strictest sense of the term. This law was given to the Jews, the decendants of Jacob. Moses said, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Horeb is a synonymous with Sinai, and means, properly, ground left dry by water draining off. So, Horeb and Sinai occur in the narrative of the same event. The children of Jacob are known as a commonwealth, from the giving of the law onward until their overthrow by the Romans. Paul, speaking of the Gentiles, in past times, says “They were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise.” The Jews called them “dogs.” This great enmity had its origin in the two-fold consideration of the Jew being favored in a temporal and political point of view, and the pride of his heart, which exalted him in his own imagination above even his moral superiors. This corruption of the heart, with the liability of its return, being removed by the abrogation of [pg 172] all that was peculiar to the Jews and their conversion to Christ, Paul says, “That all are one in Christ.” Christ was the bond of union, all were joined to him. But the same authority that separated them by legislation must legislate with reference to this grand change that was to take place between these decendants of Jacob and Esau. The law of commandments separating the Jews limited them in moral duties to their neighbors. It was unlawful for them to go in unto one of another nation. It limited them in trade and traffic to their own countrymen; also limited them to their own people in matrimonial relations. So God must be heard again, I say, heard! for He was heard at the giving of the law, which is now to be taken out of the way. When Jesus took Peter, James and John up in a high mountain and was transfigured before them, Moses and Elias, the great representatives of the Patriarchial and Jewish dispensations, appeared unto them and “a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.” Math. xvii, 5. Here is the authority that gave the institution peculiar to the Jews legislating with reference to Him whose doings were to end that system of things, and lead all into “a new and living way.” Paul says: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.” So Christ took away the first will and established the second. See Heb. x, 9. Paul says: “As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” This relation of duty to the reception of Christ has direct reference to the character in which we receive him. He was given to rule, to exercise Lordship. He is Lord of all. The term Lord signifies “ruler by right of possession.” If He is not Lord of all there is an abundance of false testimony upon this one subject, and Christianity is diseased in the head. And if he is Lord of all, then we should leave that old mountain that shook and burned with fire, and all the political paraphernalia of Sinai, and consider ourselves complete in Christ, who is “Emanuel, God [pg 173] with us.” If any man does this he is not troubled with the old “bond woman.” Jehovah said of Christ: “I have given Him for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.” Isaiah xlii, 2. New duties appear before us in the New Testament, with new obligations lying at their foundation. Jesus said: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sins.” Again: “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now have they both seen and hated both Me and my Father.” John xv, 22-24.
Justification turns no longer upon the ancient law, and the sacrificial and typical system of blood is no longer the means of pardon. The law contained a shadow of good things to come, but the body was of Christ. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Everything turns in this dispensation upon Christ and his Law. Jesus told his disciples to teach their converts to observe all things which He had commanded them to teach, and they filled their mission. Paul said, He “shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God,” “kept back nothing.” With reference to law, he said, “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write are the commandments of the Lord.” For the glory of Christ, as his just meed of praise, it was written, “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” In this major proposition the minor, of the seventh-day Sabbath, is involved. The Lord said of Israel, “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.” Hosea, ii, 11. No man is threatened, by Christ or any of his apostles, on account of Sabbath-breaking, or any of those things which are peculiar to the Jews. But men are threatened for disobedience to the [pg 174] Gospel of Christ. The New Testament is of Christ. Its religion is not “the Jews' religion,” but Christ's. There was much in the Old Testament that is in the New, but it is there by the authority of Christ. Hence, we are “complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power.” Much in the laws of the United States was first in the laws of England, but we do nothing with reference to English authority. So it is with us, as respects all who went before Christ, we do nothing in reference to them, but do all in reference to Christ, and for His name. The Old Kingdom of Israel, with its political law, statutes and judgments, has passed away, and Christ reigns “all in all.” To Him “be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.” Jude, xxv.