02.07. The Sabbath: Conclusion of Part One

CHAPTER VII
THE CONCLUSION OF PART FIRST: THE LAW CONTAINING THE
SABBATH HAVING PASSED AWAY, THE SABBATH ITSELF HAS
NO MORE CLAIM UPON CHRISTIANS THAN ANY OTHER
FEATURE OF THE LAW GIVEN TO ISRAEL AT MT. SINAI

It is evident to everyone, that if the law was done which con­tained the Sabbath, the Sabbath went with it, and, unless it was re-enacted by the Savior, is no more a law by which Christians should be governed than the law of circumcision, which was given alone to the seed of Abraham, and to those bought with their money. Hence it seems proper to continue the evidence upon the question in hand, not because the Scriptures already quoted are insufficient, but that we may add to them a few other statements, exhibiting the fact that in at least half of the episto­lary communications, this doctrine of modern Sabbatarianism was directly opposed by inspiration.

VII. As a seventh testimony on this subject I will quote Rom 7:17.

"Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them who know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that, being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. 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."

Here the teaching is plain: (1) These brethren had once been under the Law of Moses—not a part of it, but the whole of it. (2) While that law was in existence they were so related to it that service to any other system would have been regarded as unfaithfulness in a wife to her husband. (3) But as a woman is free from the law of her husband by his death, so they had been made free from the requirements of the law by the body of Christ. (4) Being made free from the law in which they had been held, it was right that they should be married to Christ, and that in this new relation, they should bring forth fruit to God. (5) It is also clear that the law referred to, con­tained the Decalogue, for the word covet quoted by Paul, is only to be found in that part of the law. Hence, if it is possible for a man to teach anything by the use of words, then has Paul taught in this passage that we are not under the Law of Moses in any respect.

VIII. The eighth witness on this subject will be found by reading 2Co 3:5-14.

"But our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament; which is done away in Christ."

It will be noticed that I do not use the word vail in the last verse. But as it is wholly unwarranted, there being nothing in the original from which it comes, I dismiss it. Our translators have put it in italic letters denoting that it was supplied; but they should not have put it there at all. In this passage it is said distinctly three several times that the Old Covenant "was done away" (1Co 3:11), “abolished “(2Co 3:13), and "done away in Christ" (2Co 3:14). Now whatever that law was that is here put in antithesis with the gospel of Christ, it had been done away when Paul wrote this epistle. Further, it is impossi­ble that Paul should have had any other writing before his mind in indicating this Scripture than the Decalogue. It was the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones; the Old Testament, and was done away in Christ. A part of this Old Institution was the Sabbath day, and went with the law of which it was a part, the law having been removed it could not have been left standing. I have never heard anything like an answer to this argument from the friends of the Sabbath. I do not think there is any to be made. Indeed if I were directed to write a statement that the law containing the Sabbath was removed, I could not make it stronger than Paul has in the language just quoted, IX. A last witness is taken from Paul’s letter to the brethren at Colosse; chapter 2:13-17.

“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having for­given you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordi­nances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."

Here it will be seen that I have chosen to leave off the italicized word days. It is known to every reader that words of the Common Version found in italic letters are without any authority in the Scriptures, and that they have only been put into the body of the work because the compilers thought that the passage would be better understood by their use. But, as in the added vail in the Corinthian letter, they are positively in the way of the truth, and therefore better left out

It is said that the ordinances of this passage belong to the ceremonial law and not to the Decalogue, and hence Paul was not speaking of the removal of the Ten Commandments.

It will be answer enough to this, to say that the word dogma, here translated ordinance, occurs five times in the New Testa­ment, and in three of them it is rendered decree.—Luk 2:1; Acts 16:4; Acts 17:7. The word does not indicate ceremonies any more than any other edict of a sovereign.

Another attempt to explain away the meaning of the passage is that the word Sabbath means, not the weekly rest-day, but feast days or stated festivals, which belonged to the ceremonial law. The word, however, rendered holy day (heortes), has just that meaning in it and covers all the ground they wish to have the Sabbath occupy in the text. It is rendered literally correct in the Emphatic Diaglott: "Let no one, therefore, rule you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a festival, or of a new moon, or of Sabbaths."

It is therefore as plain as anything can be, that the word Sab­bath does not refer to any of the Jewish feast days for they had already been spoken of. And there was nothing else that the writer could have referred to but the Sabbath of the Decalogue. A kind of last resort is to claim that the word sabbatoon is plural, and hence it must be rendered Sabbaths or Sabbath days, and therefore it cannot relate to the weekly Sabbath.

We have already seen that there were no other days that it could have meant, as they were presented in the other words of the text, and there is no reason to suppose that the Sabbatical year or the jubilee be intended. Hence there was nothing else to which reference could have been made. As for the word Sabbath being the plural, it signifies nothing, since the day occurred over and over again, and might, there­fore, be spoken of in the plural number with great propriety.

Still further, it is known to everyone who reads the Greek of the New Testament, that the third declension plural—as in the case in hand—is used interchangeably with the second declen­sion singular. And that it is therefore many times rightly ren­dered by a noun in the singular number. I will refer to a few occurrences of the word in question, that the reader may see just how it is constantly used:

From the foregoing induction, it is as certain as it can be, that there is no sufficient reason for using the word days in Col 2:16, or for demanding that it shall have a plural rendering. Many of the parallel passages of those we cited are second declension singular, and those of the third declension plural, in every case refer to the weekly Sabbath, except those cases in which it is preceded by the adjective first, where it is always rendered week; the word day being employed to fill the ellipsis. From all that is now before us in respect to this passage we are compelled to say:

Paul did not use the word Sabbath in the sense of feast days, for he had just spoken of them in the most appropriate terms possible, and would not repeat it in the same sentence.

Here I feel disposed to dismiss the case so far as the keeping of the Sabbath is concerned. When Paul says, let no man judge you in respect of the Sabbath, I stand upon that liberty, and do not propose that any man shall entangle me in that service which was taken out of the way and nailed to the cross.

There have been many strange doctrines preached in the name of Christianity, but how any man with ordinary judgment, and any faith at all in the inspiration of the apostles, can claim that we must keep the seventh day of the week, by virtue of the law that was given at Mt. Sinai, when nearly half of the argu­mentative portion of the epistles was leveled directly against that very falsehood, is exceedingly strange. In the minds of those who feel that we must have a "thou shalt “for all acts of devotion, will feel that we have removed one of the great props by which the world shall be made to respect the service of God. Their fear is wholly unnecessary. We are not going to be injured in any way in following the Scriptures. And we know that if they teach anything, they teach that we are free from the law; that we are not under the law; that the law was done away in Christ; that it only served as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ that we might be justi­fied by faith, but that as faith has come, we are no longer under the old schoolmaster. Nay, more, the conclusion is drawn for us; these things being so, this law having been taken away, we are not to be judged by anything which it contained: new moons, feast days, or the Sabbath.

Still it will be asked if the Sabbath to the Jew was not a foundation for the Lord’s Day to be observed by the Christian

While it may be true that it is best for men to take one day out of every seven for rest and devotion, we will see in the second proposition that the two days are very unlike in many particu­lars. They were for different purposes and kept for different reasons. The one called to mind the creation of the world and the delivery of Israel from Egypt, while the other recalls the redemption that is in Christ Jesus and his promise to come a second time without a sin offering to salvation.