Saturday, June 1, 2019

Getting Real about the 4th Commandment


But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God:
Exodus 20:10
 
"Driven from the position that all the precepts of the divine law, excepting the fourth, are re-affirmed in the New Testament, this class of opponents are compelled to admit that in the case of the second commandment reference is made only to the principle or
facts upon which the precept is based.
This is all they can possibly maintain. When fairly and squarely on this ground, then we are prepared to say to them that the term “Sabbath,” in the singular number, which expresses the very institution sustained by the fourth precept of the moral code, is mentioned fifty-nine times in the New Testament.
So that when it comes to this, that in some of the nine precepts reference is made by the apostles to only the principle or fact which gave rise to the precept, then it will be seen that Sabbatarians are ahead, having fifty-nine references to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment in the New Testament. Can as many references be shown from the New Testament to any other one of the ten precepts of the decalogue? Search and see.

But why labor to dodge the point?
*The Sabbath is either abrogated, or it is not.
*It is either the duty of the people of God to observe the Sabbath, or it is not their duty.
*It is either binding, or it is not.
*The observance of the Sabbath is not partly right and partly wrong.
*The Sabbath has either been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, or it has not been changed.
*We should observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, or we should not.
*We should observe the seventh day, or we should not.
 
-Where is the plain proof from the New Testament that the Sabbath is abrogated?
-What prophet of God has declared that the moral code of the Infinite One should be abolished, or changed?
-And what apostle has stated in plain terms that anything of this kind has taken place?"
James White