TRADITION OR SCRIPTURE.
By Editor
A CORRESPONDENT sends us a clipping from the Gospel Advocate of May 11, 1893, and requests us to notice it; but to our mind it needs no notice. It is just the character of many Sunday arguments. It makes the broad statements that there is not a greater delusion in modern times than the idea that the old Jewish Sabbath is still in force. Man was never commanded to keep the Sabbath at all till the command was given through Moses. The Sabbath was part of the law, was one of the ten commandments, and was taken out of the way when Jesus died upon the cross. To keep the old Jewish Sabbath, therefore, is to keep something that is just as dead as animal sacrifice, and cannot benefit any human being. But to ignore the Lord's day, the first day of the week, is to ignore the worship of the Lord's house, the Lord's Supper, and virtually to ignore the resurrection of Christ, and to reject Christ as a ruler, lawgiver, and Saviour. It really amounts to rejecting the New Testament, the new dispensation. All of these things are stated by the editor of the Gospel Advocate as truth, but no Scripture proof whatever is given to confirm the statement. Now every Bible student knows that the Sabbath of the Lord was given at creation (Gen. 2:2, 3), when it was made for man (Mark 2:27); that it was never by Inspiration called "Jewish;" that it was a part of the Decalogue (Ex. 20:8-10), of which, said Christ, "it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail" (Luke 16:17); that Christ himself kept it (John 15:10; Luke 4:16); that those taught by Christ kept it as God commanded it (Luke 23:56); that Christ is the Light of the world (John 8:12); and that those who claim to be his disciples are to walk even as he walked, and so show forth the light that shines from him (1 John 2:6; Matt. 5:16). For the first day as a Sabbath, or holy day, there is not one word of Scripture. It is never once called a Sabbath, or holy day, nor the Lord's day. The only Lord's day revealed in the Scripture is the Sabbath of the Lord. See Ex. 20:8-11; Isa. 58:13; Mark 2:28. The proof that the gospel has brought us into harmony with God is God's holy law; for the righteousness of God is revealed to us by faith in the gospel (Rom. 1:16, 17), and the witness to the rightness of that righteousness is God's law (Rom. 3:21, 22). Whoever knows this righteousness will never desire the blessed witness of it to be taken out of the way. He will say, "Thy testimonies are my delight." "Great peace have they which love thy law; and they shall have no stumbling block." Ps. 119:165, margin.690The quotation from the Gospel Advocate is a fair sample of the instruction given on the Sabbath question by scores of religious papers and from hundreds of religious pulpits. Which will our readers follow, the word of man or the word of God? human tradition or the commandments of God?