LESSON X. Perpetuity of the Law

Questions to Lesson 10^{*What do we now inquire? For what do we offer an apology? Who is God? By what did be form man? What did this great God do? From what place did he speak? What did he speak? In what did he engrave this law? In what were the tables placed? Where deposited? What was seen above the ark? Who only could enter there? How often? What do many professed friends of God declare? What do others say? What was the power, prophesied of in Daniel, to speak? What think to change? If none teach that the law of God is changed, what do we know? What do people admit? What else? What do they deny? By whom do they say the change was made? What is the power prophesied of in Daniel, admitted to be? What does she claim?}

We now inquire, Has God abolished his law or altered any part of it?BIC 24.2

In the first place, we offer our apology for asking such a question. For the person who believes that there is one living and true God, the Maker of all things, who by his power and wisdom formed man and gave him all his powers, both of body and of mind; who believes that this great God came down to earth in flaming fire, and from the top of a mountain, that trembled and shook at his presence, spake forth the moral rules of his government to the assembled thousands who stood at a distance gazing on this scene of awful sublimity; that the same God engraved this law with his own finger, in tables of stone, and ordered them to be placed in a golden ark prepared expressly for their reception, and deposited in the most holy place of the earthly temple, guarded on each side by holy angels, with the visible glory of God, the symbol of the divine presence above it; where none could enter but the high priest, and he but once in a year; we say, that the person who believes all this, ought to have some good excuse for seeming to admit, for a moment, the possibility of that law’s being abolished, or of its being changed in the least.BIC 24.3

Our excuse, then, for asking the question is this: that we are not the first to ask it, but that many men, professing to be the friends of God, declare that this law has been abolished, consequently that we are under no obligation to keep it. Others say that the fourth commandment has been changed, so that the first day of the week is now the Sabbath instead of the seventh.BIC 25.1

The Change belongs to Anti-Christ.—In Daniel 7:25, we have a prophecy of a power that should arise on earth, that should “speak great words against the Most High, and wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws.” Now if no one teaches that the laws of the Most High are changed, we know that that power has not yet arisen, and that this prophecy is not yet fulfilled. But we find people admitting that that power has arisen; also that the law of God is changed from what it once was; and yet deny that the change was made by that power, but affirm that the Son of God made the change! while the church of Rome, which is admitted to be the power prophesied of, claims that she made the change, and that she had a right to do so.BIC 26.1