The Closing Messages of the Gospel

THE COMMANDMENTS.—If we take the testimony of the New Testament, there is no difficulty in finding what the commandments of the message are; for the term refers invariably to the moral code of ten commandments, unless it is qualified by the context, as, "The law of commandments contained in ordinances," referring to the ordinances of the Jewish church. To the young man inquiring the way to eternal life Jesus said, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." He refers to the commandments of the Decalogue; for he quotes a part of them. Matt. 19:16-19.

Paul speaks of this law when he says, "Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." The tenth commandment convicted him of sin; and of this law and this commandment he says, "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good." Rom. 7:7-12. Again he says, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right." And then, to prove his assertion, he refers to the fifth commandment of the ten as "the first commandment with promise." Eph. 6:1-3. These testimonies show that the apostle used the word commandment as referring to one of the ten.

When the Pharisees asked our Lord, "Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?" he replied, "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition. For God commanded saying, Honor thy father and mother." This is one of the ten; and he further says, "Ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." "But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matt. 15:1-9.

These ten precepts therefore are the commandments of God according to the New Testament, as well as the Old; and consequently they are those which are kept by the last generation of the true church, those who hear and heed the last message of the gospel. Need we labor to prove that these commandments are still binding upon all men? The fact that the last of God's people on earth are prophesied of as keeping them is of itself sufficient proof. The commandments of the message are not those peculiar to the gospel; for these are included in the faith of Jesus, which they also keep. They keep both the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ.

Some claim to be guided by the New Testament, and want testimony from it. We will give it. But the testimony of God to any truth in the Old Testament is just as good as it is in the New. There is no contradiction in all the word of God. In Ps. 19:7 we read.—"The law of the Lord is perfect." If we have any better law in the New Testament, than that which existed at the time this testimony was written, it must be more than perfect. How can that which is absolutely perfect be improved or exchanged for a better? In Ps. 111:7, 8 we read, "The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure. They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness." Ps. 119:142,—"Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth." That which was right, or righteousness, once is so now and forever. Abolish that law, and you abolish the truth. Verse 151,—"Thou art near, O Lord, and all thy commandments are truth." Change one of these commandments, and you "change the truth of God into a lie." See Rom. 1:25. By referring to Neh. 9:13 it is seen that these commandments, which are affirmed to be the truth, are those which were spoken by God at Sinai; and those were the ten, no more nor no less; for we read that he spoke these commandments there with a great voice, "and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone." Deut. 5:22.

Of Christ it was prophesied, "He will magnify the law and make it honorable." Isa. 42:21. This he did in his sermon on the mount. Said he, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 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; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:17-19.

The apostles taught the same doctrine, the perpetuity of the law of God. Says Paul, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law." Rom. 3:31. The Lord knew that there would be those who would teach that the law is superceded and made void by the faith of the gospel; and this text was written to forestall that heresy.

Says James, "If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. But if ye have respect of persons ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." Here the apostle teaches his brethren, the Christians, to keep every precept of that law which forbids adultery and murder, which is no other than the ten commandments.

But though Christ was to magnify the law—praise, extol, exalt it—as he has done in teaching its perfection in every jot and tittle, its perpetuity and universality till heaven and earth pass, obeying it in his life, so that he was without sin, and then dying for our transgressions of it, thus making it honorable, yet there was another power prophesied of in Dan. 7:25, the antichristian power, that should, as we have seen, "think to change" the times and laws of God. This would not magnify, but would blaspheme the law and, to the extent of its influence, make it dishonorable. We have pointed out that power in the fulfillment of the prophecy, and have shown conclusively that the Roman papacy has done this very thing, and that that church boasts of having changed "the Sabbath into Sunday," "a change for which there is no Scriptural authority." A Roman bishop at Belfast, Ireland, recently said, "We, the church, did that astonishing feat."

Now which shall we follow?—Him who magnified his Father's law and made it honorable, or him who with hands attempted to exalt himself above God by changing it, or, in other words, to supersede it by a law of his own? Shall we worship God by obeying his law as he himself gave it? or shall we worship that wicked power which thinks to change it, by keeping the law that he has given in its stead? These things are placed in contrast before us in the third angel's message, and all are called upon to choose between the two.

The Christian world are observing what they truly call the first day of the week as the Sabbath. But the Bible says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord." Here the question is often asked, "If this is so why has it never been found out before?" If this is so!—why, the Bible says it is so. This hypothetical, doubtful, skeptical question suggests the true reply. Our fathers were trained in the tradition of the first-day Sabbath, as well as we; and they had not quite enough faith to believe the Bible in that in which it contradicts the tradition of their fathers. Some few there were in every age who held the Sabbath of the Bible; and without doubt it was thought strange that those few Sabbatarians should set themselves up to know more than all the learned world beside; and probably the same question was then asked, "If this is so, why have none of our learned men discovered it long ago!" All that is wanting is to believe what God says on the point in question.

Are you acquainted with the history of the world and of the Christian church since the days of Christ and the apostles? If you are, you know that the great majority of those claiming to be the only true church departed from the faith of the gospel, as it had been foretold by prophets and apostles, and that this great Roman apostasy bore rule over men, in the place of God, and persecuted those who followed the teachings of Christ and the apostles, wherever they could be found. Those times are very properly called "the dark ages." The people were not allowed to read the Bible. Copies of this sacred and costly book were burned; and it was utterly impossible for the poor and the common people to have it. The apostate church assumed the right to make laws for all, claiming power, as we have seen, "to institute festivals of precept," and she still boasts of putting Sunday, the first day of the week, in the place of the Sabbath, the seventh day, and this without any Scriptural authority.

The Reformation commenced three hundred years ago; but owing to the inclination of men to follow tradition, instead of the truth, it is not yet completed. The great work of the Protestant Reformation has been to give the Bible to mankind. Without the Bible, how are men, as individuals to be tested upon its commandments? These three hundred years the Lord has been preparing the way to bring men to the final test of the third angel's message—a test between obedience to this great power of apostasy, and the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Now every person who desires a Bible can have it. That Book which in the dark ages could not be bought with the labors of a lifetime, can now be had for twenty-five cents, or even free. The time has thus come in the providence of God for men to be tested by the third angel's message. The message is already here, according to God's promise, and is being heralded to many nations. The reason why this test has not come before, is because now is the time, according to the promise of God, for this work to be done; and his providence has prepared the way. Instead then of skeptically inquiring why this blessed truth has not been discovered before, let us thank God that it is now plainly seen, and yield a willing obedience to what we know to be the truth of God as revealed in his word.