A SCRIPTURAL INQUIRY
AS TO THE TRUE NATURE OF
The Sabbath, the Law, and Christian Ministry
THE SABBATH.
If it were merely a question of the observance or non-observance of a day, it might be easily disposed of, inasmuch as the apostle teaches us in Rom. xiv. 5, 6, and also in Col. ii. 16, that such things are not to be made a ground of judgment. But seeing there is a great principle involved in the Sabbath question, we deem it to be of the very last importance to place it upon a clear and Scriptural basis. We shall quote the Fourth Commandment at full length: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Ex. xx. 8-11). This same law is repeated in Exodus xxxi. 12-17. And in pursuance thereof we find in Numbers xv. a man stoned for gathering sticks on the sabbath day. All this is plain and absolute enough. Man has no right to alter God's law in reference to the sabbath; no more than he has to alter it in reference to murder, adultery, or theft. This, we presume, will not be called in question. The entire body of old Testament Scripture fixes the seventh day as the sabbath; and the Fourth Commandment lays down the mode in which that sabbath was to be observed. Now where, we ask, is this precedent followed? Where is this command obeyed? Is it not plain that the professing Church neither keeps the right day as the sabbath, nor does she keep it after the Scripture mode? The commandments of God are made of none effect by human traditions, and the glorious truths which hang around "the Lord's day" are lost sight of. The Jew is robbed of his distinctive day and all the privileges therewith connected, which are only suspended for the present, while judicial blindness hangs over that loved and interesting, though now judged and scattered, people. And furthermore, the Church is robbed of her distinctive day and all the glories therewith connected, which if really understood would have the effect of lifting her above earthly things into the sphere which properly belongs to her, as linked by faith to her glorified Head in heaven. In result, we have neither pure Judaism nor pure Christianity, but an anomalous system arising out of an utterly unscriptural combination of the two.
However, we desire to refrain from all attempt at developing the deeply spiritual doctrine involved in this great question, and confine ourselves to the plain teaching of Scripture on the subject; and in so doing we maintain that if the professing Church quotes the Fourth Commandment and parallel scriptures in defense of keeping the sabbath, then it is evident that in almost every case the law is entirely set aside. Observe, the word is, "Thou shalt not do any work." This ought to be perfectly binding on all who take the Jewish ground. There is no room here for introducing what we deem to be "works of necessity." We may think it necessary to kindle fires, to make servants harness our horses and drive us hither and thither. But the law is stern and absolute, severe and unbending. It will not, it can not, lower its standard to suit our convenience or accommodate itself to our thoughts. The mandate is, "Thou shalt not do any work," and that, moreover, on "the seventh day," which answers to our Saturday. We ask for a single passage of Scripture in which the day is changed, or in which the strict observance of the day is in the smallest degree relaxed.
We request the reader of these lines to pause and search out this matter thoroughly in the light of Scripture. Let him not be scared as by some terrible bugbear, but let him, in true Berean nobility of spirit, "search the Scriptures." By so doing he will find that from the second chapter of Genesis down to the very last passage in which the sabbath is named, it means the seventh day and none other; and further, that there is not so much as a shadow of divine authority for altering the mode of observing that day. Law is law, and if we are under the law we are bound to keep it or else be cursed; for "it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them " (Deut. xxvii. 26; Gal. iii. 10).
But it will be said, "We are not under the Mosaic law; we are the subjects of the Christian economy." Granted; most fully, freely and thankfully granted. All true Christians are, according to the teaching of Romans vii. and viii. and Galatians iii. and iv., the happy and privileged subjects of the Christian dispensation. But if so, what is the day which specially characterizes that dispensation? Not "the seventh day," but "the first day of the week"—"the Lord's day." This is pre-eminently the Christian's day. Let him observe this day with all the sanctity, the sacred reverence, the hallowed retirement, the elevated tone, of which his new nature is capable. We believe the Christian's retirement from all secular things cannot possibly be too profound on the Lord's day. The idea of any one, calling himself a Christian, making the Lord's day a season of what is popularly called recreation, unnecessary traveling, personal convenience, or profit in temporal things, is perfectly shocking. We are of opinion that such acting could not be too severely censured. We can safely assert that we never yet came in contact with a godly, intelligent, right-minded Christian person who did not love and reverence the Lord's day; nor could we have any sympathy with any one who could deliberately desecrate that holy and happy day.