p. 163 | IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE by E. H. Gates

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 11, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 11

“IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.”

By E. H. Gates

BY E. H. GATES.

How often have I heard this excuse made by professing Christians, after it has been shown that there are no Scriptural grounds for Sunday-keeping. They say that one day is just as good to keep as the other.

Such persons do not seem to perceive that they are, by such reasoning, taking infidel grounds. Just across the way lives a man whom the people call an infidel. He says it makes no difference whether we obey any part of the Bible or not. The Christian lifts his hands in holy horror at such language; but is he not making as great a mistake as the other? One says it is not essential that we obey the fourth commandment; the other, that it makes no difference whether we obey any of the Bible precepts or not. Now is not the principle just the same in each case?

The idea that any one requirement of God may be set aside with impunity, is one that will plunge many to hopeless perdition. If God saw fit to speak his commands in terrible grandeur from Mount Sinai, who shall say, “Nay; but thou mayest violate them at pleasure”?

One class sets aside the second commandment to accommodate image-worship, while another says baptism and the Lord’s supper are of no importance. I suppose Adam and Eve, when in Eden, reasoned that God was not very particular about his commands. Nadab and Abihu thought that common fire would do as well as the sacred fire which the Lord directed to be used on the altar. The Pharisees excused themselves for disobeying the fifth precept of the decalogue, by referring to their traditions. Matt. 15.

But who shall determine which of the commandments of God are binding, and which are not, when Christ says they are all as lasting as heaven and earth? Matt. 5:17, 18. If one precept may be set aside with impunity, why may not another? and then what stands in the way of setting aside the whole word of God?

But time has demonstrated that great evil has resulted from such loose reasoning. By carrying out this principle, Adam and Eve were forced to turn their backs on their Eden home forever. Nadab and Abihu were slain by the fire of God’s wrath for their presumption. The Saviour called the Pharisees hypocrites, and said their worship was vain, and that they had made the commandments of none effect, by making their traditions equal with God’s law. These men prayed to God, and honored him with their lips; but their disobedience showed that their hearts were far from him. They could even pray upon the corners of the streets, and pay tithes of all they had; but without avail, as long as they continued to disobey the law of God.

If the Pharisees merited Christ’s rebuke for breaking

the fifth commandment, is there not danger that some will be condemned for setting aside the fourth command, by a tradition? Is not God the same God that he has ever been? The Scriptures declare him to be unchangeable.

Is not sin, or transgression of the law, as hateful in his sight as ever? Read Heb. 2:2, 3: “For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?” That is, if men in the Jewish age were punished for every transgression, how shall we, who have the light of the gospel, escape if we do the same things?

Then let no one say that it makes no difference whether we obey the fourth commandment or not. Christ says, in speaking of the law of which this is a part, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven.” Matt. 5:19.

The apostle James says of the same law, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Chap. 2:10.

The fourth commandment is at least “one point” of the law; and who has the right to say that disobedience to that command will not make one “guilty of all”?