p. 9 | The Christian and the Law by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 5, 1914

The Christian and the Law

By C. M. S.

In Dr. Lyman Abbott’s reply to a Sabbath-keeping Christian, to which reference was made last week, some propositions and deductions were stated which it may be well to consider, not because they are new or striking, but because many who desire a reason for not keeping the Sabbath of Jehovah have really accepted such arguments as that reason, and trample upon the law of God while they think they are doing his will. Dr. Abbott says:—

Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets; that is, to fill those that love him so full of the divine Spirit that they would spontaneously live the divine life; that they would obey the law without considering the law.

But there is neither logic nor reason in such an interpretation of the expression "to fulfill the law and the prophets." In making use of this expression the writer is evidently referring to that declaration of our Saviour in Matt. 5:17, which reads: "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill." Dr. Abbott would have us believe that Jesus meant to say: "I came not to destroy the law, but to eliminate it," to wipe it out of the people’s minds so that they would forget there is any law of God.

The interpretation which this writer gives of the word fulfill is peculiar, and makes one wonder at the leaps which a mind can take when it cuts loose from the law of God. There is no connection whatever between what Christ did and what Dr. Abbott says he did. Christ says he came to fulfill the law. Dr. Abbott says, "That is, to fill those that love him," etc. The Saviour is speaking of the law and the relation of his mission on earth to the law. He is not speaking of the people. It was Christ’s mission on earth "to magnify the law, and make it honorable." Isa. 42:21. Dr. Abbott’s interpretation of "fulfill" would make Christ a minifier of the law instead of a magnifier. He would have Christ do a work that would take the law entirely out of the minds of the people. Is the law of God something that either heaven or earth should be ashamed of? Why this uneasy desire and persistent endeavor to get God’s law out of the way, to hide it, to spiritualize it off the earth and out of the universe?—For no other reason than to furnish a reason for continuing to do something we ought never to have done—to have substituted a man-made Sabbath for the one which God made.

How can one whose heart is really filled with the Spirit of God and love for God declare that when Christ said he came to fulfill the law, he meant that he came to fill the people with something that would eliminate the law from their minds? It is a very serious matter to misinterpret and misconstrue the plain declaration of our Saviour. Even if it is done honestly, its consequences are disastrous.

Jesus came to fulfill all the requirements of the law, and he did it. But does that abolish it?—No; it magnifies it, for it was his mission to magnify it and make it honorable. He came to keep the law, and he kept it. Does his keeping the law release his followers from all obligation in reference thereto?—No; for we read: "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked" (1 John 2:6); and again: "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." 1 John 2:4.

Dr. Abbott continues:—

He that loves God with all his heart and soul and strength, and loves his neighbor as himself, obeys all the ten commandments, including the fourth.

We grant it, and it is true. But he does not keep all the commandments, "including the fourth," who substitutes a day of his own choosing for the one Jehovah chose and blessed and set apart as his memorial and man’s Sabbath. He who makes that substitution does not keep God’s fourth commandment, but his own in place of God’s. In view of that fact, the one who does it when he knows what is involved in it, does not love God with that intensity that the child of God ought to have. The amount of love set forth in the above quotation will lead the one who has it to want to know, above all things, just what God requires, and will not be satisfied to substitute something of his own choosing for what God has chosen for him.

Dr. Abbott expresses the idea also that the literal interpretation of the fourth commandment is made impossible on account of the shape of the earth. And yet Dr. Abbott, who keeps Sunday, does claim to be keeping the ten commandments, "including the fourth." Is it not strikingly peculiar that one can keep the ten commandments, "including the fourth," and on a round world, too, if he will only read "the first day of the week" into the commandment wherever God has written "the seventh day"? The round world never bothers the man who keeps Sunday; but tell him that the commandment requires the keeping of the seventh day, and immediately the commandment cannot be obeyed because of the shape of the earth.

Now Jehovah knew the shape of the earth, for he made it; and it is hardly honoring God for one of his professed children to declare that God has required something of man which man cannot do because God made the world round. In other words, God is charged with making a round world and then requiring man to do something which the shape of the earth makes it impossible to do. Is that magnifying the law and making it honorable? Is it not rather dishonoring the Giver of the law and making of him an inappeasable tyrant?

But there is no difficulty. The Sunday keeper admits that, so far as Sunday is concerned. We cannot keep the day where it is not. We must keep it where it is. When it comes to us, our duty toward its observance begins. When it leaves us, our obligation ceases. God’s own direction concerning this matter makes all plain, and clear, and simple: "From even unto even, shall ye keep your Sabbath." Lev. 23:32. When the evening of the sixth day comes, God’s Sabbath begins; when the evening of the seventh day comes, God’s Sabbath ends. How futile will be the excuse, in the day of judgment, that we "could not keep the Sabbath of the fourth commandment because the world is round"! And the ones who will make it are telling us today that they keep the first day of the week in honor of the resurrection of Christ, and they keep it on a round world and all around the world in spite of the fact that a very small number of people live on the meridian that runs through Mt. Calvary. Christians, above all people on earth, ought to be consistent.

Again let us call attention to our Saviour’s own declaration concerning this very matter: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:19.