SERMON FIVE — THE GIVING OF THE LAW

“Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.” Romans 9:4.SOSL 50.1

THE things here enumerated as pertaining to the Israelites are worthy of our particular attention. These are said to be, 1. The adoption; 2. The glory; 3. The covenants; 4. The giving of the law; 5. The service of God; 6. The promises. And if we quote the next verse (which reads, “Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”), we shall be able to make the following important addition to this list of Hebrew “advantages“: 7. Whose are the fathers; 8. Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.SOSL 50.2

Those who speak derisively of the moral law as a Jewish code, because “committed” or “given” into the hands of the Hebrews at a certain time, and for a certain period, would do well to study this list of things which “pertain” to the Hebrew people quite as much as does the giving of the law. Here is, first, the adoption, i.e., the choice of Abraham and his posterity through Isaac, to be the heritage of God, while all other nations were left to the false gods of their own choosing; second, the glory, as manifested in God’s wonderful revelation of his glory to the patriarchs, to Moses, to the judges, the prophets, and the people of Israel; third, the covenants, i.e., the old and new covenants, both of which are made with this people; (see Jeremiah 31:31, 32; Hebrews 8:8, 9;) fourth, the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai; fifth, the service of God in the priesthood, and in the worship which he accepted at the hands of this people; sixth, the exceeding great and precious promises which were made by God unto the fathers; seventh, the fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; eighth, and lastly, what is indeed a very great honor, of them, “as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.”SOSL 50.3

We can now appreciate the language of Paul, Romans 3:1, 2: “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” After reading his enumeration of the eight distinguished blessings and honors conferred by the God of Heaven upon the Hebrew people, we may say with Paul that the advantage pertaining to the circumcision was “MUCH EVERY WAY.” But the Spirit of God led Paul to distinguish, among these eight “advantages” which the Israelites possessed over the Gentiles, that one which is greatest. And here is the manner in which he does this: “chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”SOSL 51.1

The greatest of all these advantages conferred on ancient Israel was, therefore, “the giving of the law.” This grand event took place at Mount Sinai, about twenty-five hundred years after the creation. When the law thus “entered,” it was by the personal descent of the Lawgiver with the thousands of his angels in flaming fire, and its proclamation was ushered in by the sound of the trump of God. Exodus 19; Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalm 68:17. The Almighty spoke his law in ten precepts. The fourth precept of the law reads thus:SOSL 51.2

“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 man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 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.” Exodus 20:8-11.SOSL 52.1

This precept has one very remarkable feature. It asserts its authority from the time that God blessed and sanctified his rest-day in Eden. Man’s obligation to observe this precept rests upon what God did at the close of his work of creation. Even the statement that God hallowed his rest-day, is equivalent to saying that he appointed it to a holy use. And that original appointment is the fourth commandment in the form in which it existed in Eden. We may therefore assert, without fear of reasonable contradiction, that the law of the Sabbath was in full force from Adam to Moses; and those who during this entire period kept God’s commandments and walked with him in holiness, were, of necessity, observers of this hallowed rest-day of the Lord.SOSL 52.2

What Paul has designated in the book of Romans as the “giving of the law,” or the entrance of the law, or the committing of the oracles of God to the circumcision, was not, therefore, the commencement of existence to the law of God. Indeed, no dispute exists concerning nine of the commandments. Idolatry, and blasphemy, and murder, have never been acts against which God has had no law. And so of all the nine commandments. But it is a remarkable fact that the fourth commandment, concerning which all the dispute in this case exists, is the only one of the ten which asserts its own existence from the beginning of the world.SOSL 52.3

At the present day we have a remarkable spectacle presented to us by the religious world. 1. The authority of the fourth commandment is very generally acknowledged. 2. But almost the entire body of professed Christians who thus acknowledge the authority of the law of God, observe, as the Sabbath, a day not enjoined in the commandment. Here is, indeed, a very palpable contradiction between the theory and the practice of the so-called Christian world. Yet a way has been devised by which it is supposed that the two are made to harmonize. Very few people know the date of this discovery, or even the name of the discoverer. Indeed, the most of those who quiet their consciences by this convenient doctrine, suppose that it is as old as the law of God, and that it is really a part of the faith once delivered to the saints. Here, then, is the doctrine which is now almost universally accepted: “The fourth commandment enjoins the observance of one day in seven, but not the definite seventh day.”SOSL 52.4

This important doctrine was first announced to the world in the year 1595, by Dr. Nicholas Bound, of Norton, in the county of Suffolk, England. ^{1Coleman’s Ancient Christianity Exemplified, Chap.26, Sec.2.} It soon found general acceptance in the religious world; for it enabled men to observe the first day of the week, and yet to keep a commandment which every one had previously supposed required the observance of the Creator’s rest-day. It was welcomed everywhere by the observers of the first-day Sabbath, for it appeared to show that they were obeying the fourth commandment, a thing which previously they had not even imagined to be true. But let us consider this modern explanation of the law of God. The fourth commandment, according to this interpretation, enjoins the observance of “one day in seven, but not the definite seventh day.”SOSL 53.1

Is this doctrine true or false? It ought to be true, inasmuch as almost every one believes in it, and all persons who keep the first day of the week depend upon this “seventh-part-of-time theory” as the means of satisfying their own consciences for the serious difference between first-day observance and the letter of the fourth commandment.SOSL 53.2

1. No one claims that the commandment actually says, “one day in seven, and no day in particular.” Indeed, no one ever taught such a doctrine till the year 1595. Up to that time every one supposed it to require the observance of the very day of the Creator’s rest. And, in fact, it is by no means strange that such an idea should have prevailed respecting this precept, inasmuch as the very letter of the commandment does necessarily teach it.SOSL 54.1

2. There is not one indefinite expression contained in this precept. It does not say, “one seventh part of time;” it does not say, “a seventh day;” it does not say, “a Sabbath after six days of labor.” Such language is constantly used by men respecting the commandment, but never used in it. The indefiniteness is all in the mind of the expositor.SOSL 54.2

3. But it does say in plain terms, “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy;” “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” in it thou shalt not do any work;” “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, ... and rested the seventh day;” “the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.”SOSL 54.3

4. There is something to be remembered; it is not the sabbatic institution, but “the Sabbath-day.” What does this term signify? It signifies literally the rest-day. Whose rest-day is it? The commandment answers this question: “The seventh day is the Sabbath [or rest-day] of the Lord thy God.” But how did the Lord ever happen to have a rest-day? The commandment answers this question also: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, ... and rested on the seventh day.” But what of all that? How does that indicate any obligation on our part respecting that rest-day? The commandment answers this question also” “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.” This word, hallowed, is the same in the Hebrew, as the word rendered sanctified in Genesis 2:3. It signifies, in that language, just what hallowed and sanctified signify in English, i.e., “to set apart to a holy use.”SOSL 54.4

5. The fourth commandment does, therefore, expressly enjoin the observance of the day of the Creator’s rest.SOSL 55.1

6. We are to keep that day holy which himself blessed and hallowed. But that work did not relate to an indefinite portion of time, or to an indefinite seventh day. It related only to the day of his rest.SOSL 55.2

7. Nor is the rest-day of the Lord something indefinite in its signification. The Creator employed six days in the work of creation. The seventh day he rested from all his work. This, his rest-day, he set apart to a holy use. Now it is impossible to confound the day of the Creator’s rest with any one of the days on which he wrought in the work of creation.SOSL 55.3

8. Nor is the rest-day of the Lord something that the people who listened to the fourth commandment could not identify. The manna had been falling several weeks. And there stood the Sabbath of the Lord each time unmistakably identified. Six days of manna, and one day in which no manna fell, could not otherwise than establish two great facts with the children of Israel: (1) That the commandment did not mean one day in seven, but the definite seventh day. (2) That it was possible to determine with perfect certainty that definite seventh day on which the Creator rested. For the commandment plainly enjoins the day of the Creator’s rest; and the fall of the manna left no possible chance to dispute what day this was.SOSL 55.4

9. In fact, the definite character of the fourth commandment is established on yet another ground. That precept does not aim, as its principal object, to secure rest for man from wearisome toil; nor yet to secure merely a stated day of weekly worship. Where either of these objects the chief or primary object of the Law-giver, we might well reason that there was no importance to one day of the seven above another. But the commandment has another object in view. It is the celebration of a memorial. There is something to be remembered. That something is the rest-day of the Lord. The reason for that remembrance is that we may keep in mind the fact that God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Hence it is that a definite day, the day of the Creator’s rest, was hallowed by him, to be observed by all his creatures, in grateful acknowledgment of the fact that they owe their existence to him. We cannot change the day, nor render the commandment indefinite, without destroying its character as a memorial of the creation of the heavens and the earth.SOSL 55.5

10. Nor is there any lack of distinctness as to the day of the Sabbath in the New Testament. The gospels do each plainly distinguish the Sabbath as the last day of the week, in that they speak of the day following as the first day of the week. Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 23:56; 24:1; John 19:31, 42; 20:1.SOSL 56.1

11. But the language of Luke is peculiarly worthy of our notice, inasmuch as it makes distinct reference to the commandment. We learn that those who kept the Sabbath-day according to the commandment, observed the day preceding the first day of the week. Compare Luke 23:56; 24:1. Then it is certain that they kept the seventh day of the week in keeping the day designated in the commandment. And as that commandment enjoins the observance of the seventh day, and as the New Testament, in recording the observance of that day according to the commandment, makes it come on the seventh day of the week, it is evident that the seventh day of the commandment and the seventh day of the New Testament week are identical.SOSL 56.2

12. Finally, the measurement of time by weeks is a conclusive argument for the definite seventh day. The week is not a natural or providential measurement of time, like the day, or month, or year. It is measured by divine appointment in commemoration of God’s rest on the seventh day. Weeks exist in consequence of the sabbatic institution. The last day, therefore, of each week is the Sabbath of the Lord. This divine arrangement originated at the close of the creation week, by God’s act of appointing the seventh day to a holy use in memory of his own rest upon that day. And the week thus ordained has come down to us, its close each time being marked by the rest-day of the Creator.SOSL 56.3

The law of God was given to the Hebrew people. In that law is the precept which enjoins the observance of the sacred day of the Creator’s rest. The law and the Sabbath were not rendered Jewish by being thus intrusted to the hands of that people. Indeed, if we object to the law of God on this ground, then we must, as Paul shows in Romans 9:4, 5, disclaim all part in the new covenant; for that, as well as the old one, was made with the Hebrew people; we must exclude ourselves from the promises made to the fathers, for they were Hebrews; and we must even decline to accept of Christ as our Saviour, because, as concerning the flesh, Christ came of the Jews. Surely, the law of God and the Sabbath were in good company when they were associated with these inestimable blessings which were conferred on the Hebrew race.SOSL 57.1

Certainly, we have nothing to boast of in the fact that we are Gentiles by nature. If we are the people of God, we belong now, ourselves, to Israel. If God has preserved to us the knowledge of his Sabbath and his law by means of the Hebrew people during all the time that all our Gentile ancestors went astray after false gods, let us not boast ourselves against the oracles of God, nor against that people who were for a time their depositaries. We may now share in the blessings of the law of God, his promises, his new covenant, and his Sabbath. Let us not despise these inestimable blessings.SOSL 57.2