"'In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.'"
"Plain enough, isn't it, Mary?" asked Robert. "God found fault with the old covenant (see verse 7) and so he took it away."
"But, Robert," said Mary, "does this mean that it is right to lie, or steal, or kill? If the Ten Commandments are done away with, how will these sins be condemned?" And Mary was really puzzled about it.
"Why, Mary," said Robert, "the Ten Commandments did not make it wrong to lie and steal. It was always wrong to lie and steal even before there were any Ten Commandments. Wrong is wrong. Now in Christ's law every possible wrong is condemned. Do you see the point? Now, the Sabbath-day law is the Fourth Commandment of the Ten. But that Sabbath law was given to the Jews only. They could keep it where they lived, but everybody can't keep it now at the same time even if they should want to."
"You see we live on a round earth," continued Robert, "and the sun shines somewhere all the time. Now Israel could keep the seventh day all right in Palestine, but suppose that they had been scattered over all the earth? Then a Jew in Australia would be keeping his Sabbath about eighteen hours before his brother in California. The day begins out in the Pacific Ocean, not because it really begins there, but because for the sake of convenience it was fixed to begin there. The whole arrangement is artificial. Now, would God put so much emphasis on keeping a certain day under such circumstances? Adventists think it is very wrong to work on the Sabbath-day, yet some of them work as much as twelve hours while their brethren on the other side of the earth are keeping their Sabbath. It is impossible for all the earth to keep the Sabbath at the same time."
"Well, I never thought of that before," said Mary, as her Adventism began to leave her about as quickly as it came.
"Now the fact is, too, Mary," said Robert, "that the Catholics did not change the Sabbath-day. They may claim to have done so and the Adventists accept the claim, it appears, but the early Christians kept the first day of the week Sunday, long before there was any Roman Catholic Church or any pope at Rome. Adventists twist history here just like they twist the Scriptures."
"Listen here, dear," continued Robert. "'I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day' (Rev. 1:10). What day was the Lord's Day? It was not Saturday, the Sabbath. Pentecost, that grand birthday of the church, was on Sunday (Acts 2:1-4). The disciples met to break bread on the first day of the week—Sunday (Acts 20:6, 7). The laying-by of the collection for the saints was made on the first day of the week—Sunday (1 Cor. 16:1, 2). On the Sabbath-day Jesus lay cold in death in the borrowed tomb while the sad and disconsolate disciples mourned the death of the Prince of Israel, their Savior. But on Sunday morning Christ arose triumphant (John 20:1) and in memory of it Christians began early to observe Sunday as a day of worship."
"Mary, you were just about to be entangled with a yoke of bondage, a yoke of man's making," said Robert. "This Sabbath doctrine of the Adventists is utterly man-made. In their writings the apostles did not teach the keeping of it; so why go away back to bleak and smoking Sinai for a law to keep when Jesus offers us a new covenant? Why those Adventists are trying to prop up a law that was old, and decayed, and ready to vanish away in Paul's time."
"Did Constantine make a Sunday law, Robert?" asked Mary.