In Context.

((( Note- the following describes logic with scripture, with continuity all of which are needed when we are -  'rightly dividing the word of truth'.

2Ti_2:15  Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

When a person takes something out of context often they can spin it anyway they choose. So many lies are produced when someone can take the words of another and apply them to mean something never intended. Lawyers do this all the time in court, and it is used to confuse and manipulate the jury into believing that the one on trial is guilty, or innocent when in fact they may be the opposite of what is trying to be conveyed.

How often in various tv shows, movies, etc, have lawyers said- "Didn't you say you were going to kill that person? Witnessing heard you yelling that you said, 'I'm going to kill you!'."   And it's true those words were uttered but out of fury, not actual intent. But because the words were uttered and heard by others they are taken as proof.

You know what I'm talking about here, the message I'm trying to convey. It's not just with murder, but in our everyday lives people take things out of context and use them to their advantage when if they would just look at the entire picture a very different truth is revealed.

We cannot take a verse out of context and have that single verse contradict so many others, just to prove a point we want to make.  Satan loves to manipulate God's truth, and He knows God's word better than most people ever will.

Please, let the Holy Spirit reveal to all who seek only the truth, that you don’t abolish an Eden issued command, a command that stands right alongside of not stealing, murdering, adultery, dishonor- all of which are timelessly to be kept.  May God bless us in our study, always.))))

Vol. I.]  OSWEGO, N. Y. MARCH, 1850. [No. 7

JAMES WHITE

CONTINUED….

Speaking of the design of the Sabbath, Eld. Marsh says—

" It was also designed as a sign or memorial to keep in memory the creation of the world in six days by God, and his resting on the seventh."

That God instituted the weekly Rest for man to keep in commemoration of His Rest on the seventh day, after he had created the world in six days, is as clear as the noonday sun. It is one of the most simple and glorious truths of the Bible.

The passover was a memorial for Israel, that they might not forget their wonderful deliverance from Egyptian bondage. The communion of the body and blood of Christ is a memorial instituted for the Church to keep in memory the Lamb of God who suffered and died for us. So the seventh-day Sabbath is a weekly memorial instituted to commemorate God's Rest-day, after he had created the world in six days, that man might not forget the living God who made heaven and earth. If man had always observed this memorial, none would have forgotten God, and there never would have been an infidel in the world. How wonderful and wise the plan of Jehovah, laid out in the beginning! Man was to labor six days, and on the seventh rest from servile labor and care ; and by viewing the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all things which were created in six days, he was to call to Mind the living God who rested on the seventh.

The Passover was to be observed ;from the time of the deliverance from Egypt, until "Christ our Passover" was "sacrificed for us ;" the communion was to be observed by the church from the crucifixion, until the second advent of Jesus* so the seventh-day Sabbath was designed to be kept from the creation to, at least, the close of time.

But Eld. Marsh's view of the Sabbath teaches that this memorial was not to be observed for more than twenty-five hundred years after God created the world in six days and rested on'  he seventh, and that it was to be observed by the Jews only, to the crucifixion, and that the whole gospel dispensation was, to be left without it! A singular memorial indeed, "to keep in memory the creation of the world in six days by God, and his resting on the seventh" As though the Jews were the only people that needed "to keep in memory" God's creation, and holy Rest !

" Finally, it was a shadow of things to come. "Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy flay, or of the new moon,- or of the Sabbath, [`days' is supplied by the translators, we therefore omit it] which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. Col. ii, 16, 17."

That we may more clearly understand Col. ii, 16,17 ; and other texts of the Same class, let us take a view of some of the `trials of the early church. A portion of the Christian Church were converts from the circumcision or Jews, and a portion from the uncircumcision or Gentiles. The converts from the Jewish church were inclined to practice many of the ceremonies and customs of the Jewish religion, in which they _had been educated, while the Gentile Christians were free from them. Certain men from Judea "taught- the brethren" that they must be circumcised in order to be saved, with whom "Paul and Barnabas had no small dissention and disputation," and then went up to Jerusalem "about this question," where they were met by "certain of the sect of the Pharisees which BELIEVED, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. See Acts xv, 1-==6===This fact, that some were judging the brethren, and were making the observance of the laws of Moses, Which were "abolished," a test of salvation, led St. Paul to write the following exhortation:

" Let no man therefore JUDGE YOU in meat or in drink, or in respect of a festival, (see Macknight's translation,) or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days."

Eld. Marsh says, "days, is supplied by the translators, we therefore omit it." Macknight and Whiting both omit "days" but they do not leave the word "Sabbath," in the singular as Eld. Marsh has for his readers. They both translate it "Sabbaths," in the plural, which makes the text perfectly clear. Now turn to Lev. xxiii, 24-28, and you will find four Sabbaths," that were to be observed on the first, tenth, fifteenth and twenty second days of the seventh month, which are there associated with such ceremonies of the laws of Moses as "a burnt-offering, and a meat-offering, a sacrifice, and drink-offerings," the Same as Paul has associated them with "meat," "drink," "the new-moon" and "a festival."

" I will also cause all her mirth 'to cease, her feast-days, her new-moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts." Hosea ii, 11.

" The Sabbath of the Lord our God" is not referred to by St. Paul in Col. ii, 14-16, for the following reasons ;

1. It was the "HAND-WRITING of ordinances" written in the book of the law by the HAND OF MOSES that was "blotted out," and not that which was spoken from Mount Sinai, and ENGRAVEN in, stone with the FINGER OF GOD. I will here give some texts which show the distinction between the law of Moses, and the law of God.

THE LAW OF MOSES

Was the book of the covenant written by the hand of Moses.

" And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the Priest found a BOOK of the law of the Lord, given by the hand of Moses." (See margin) 2 Chron; xxxiv, 14.'

" And he read in their ears all the Words of the BOOK of the COVENANT that was found in the house of the Lord." See 2 •Chron. xxxiv, $0 ; Dent,,ixxi, 9-11, 24-26; 2 Kings xxiii, 2, 21: Nell. viii, 1-3.

THE LAW or GOD

Is the ten commandments that were written on two tables of stone by the finger of God, called the tables of the covenant. "And he declared unto you HIS COVENANT, which he commanded you to perform, EVEN TEN COMMANDMENTS ; and he wrote them upon TWO TABLES OF STONE." Deut. iv, 13 ; see also Ex. xxiv, 12; xxxi, 18; xxxii, 15-16; xxxiv, 28, 29; Deut. ix, 9-11

The idea of "blotting out" what Moses wrote in the book of the covenant is perfectly natural ; but what idea can we have of "blotting out" what Jehovah had engraved with his finger in the, tables of the covenant! The "Royal. Law from the "King Eternal" was thus engraven in stone to impress us with its perpetuity.

2. The Holy Sabbath never was "against us;" for it was "made FOR man," -because he needed a day of rest. It never was in man's way, only as God put it in his way for him to observe, and it is just what his natural and.  spiritual wants require; therefore he has never taken it "out of the way."

The law of Moses was imperfect, and could not make the " comers thereunto perfect," so, Christ took it "out of the way,' and nailed it to his cross. But. St. Paul, speaking of the law of God, the ten commandments, A. D. 60, more than twenty years after the laws of Moses were dead, says,

" Wherefore the law is HOLY, and the commandment holy, and just and good,' "For I know that the law is SPIRITUAL." "I DELIGHT in the LAW OF GOD,,after the inward man." See Rom. vii, 12, 14, 22.

3. St. Paul does not speak,  of "the Sabbath" which is associated with the other nine laws of God, but of sabbath-days, or sabhaths which are associated' with "meat," "drink," " new-moons," &c. in the laws of Moses.

4. The Sabbath is not a shadow, for it is to be observed as long as the New Heavens and the New Earth remain

" For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.

" And it Shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath' to another, shall all, fiesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." Isa. lxvi, 22, 23.

"All flesh" never have worshipped God on the Sabbath since Isaiah wrote this prophecy, neither will this prophecy, be fulfilled until the righteous are all gathered into the New Earth ; then the Sabbath, in its Eden glory, will be observed as long as the immortal saints, and the New Heavens and Earth remain.

Mark this. The Sabbath.  was instituted before the fall, when man was holy, and Eden bloomed on earth, and it will be in its place after the restitution, the same as before the fall.

All shadows cease when they reach their bodies which cast them. Follow the shadow of a tree to its body, and there the shadow ends. But as the weekly Sabbath will never end, it is not a shadow ; but a body of itself, as well as the other nine commandments, for they are all of the same nature. The old tradition is imprinted deeply in most minds that the seventh-day Sabbath is a type of the seventh millennium ; but where is the Scripture to prove it ? It is not in the Bible. The view that the Sabbath is a type of the seventh thousand years, and that it ceased at the crucifixion, makes a blank space of more than eighteen hundred years between the shadow and the body which entirely destroys the figure.

Finally, the fact, that the early church was troubled with those who taught them that they must keep the law of Moses in order to be saved, shows that Col. ii, 16, directly applied to the church in the apostle's day. It, is therefore wrong to apply this text to those who are now keeping the Sabbath, for none of us are contending for the sabbaths, new-moons, &c. of Moses' law

These are the only reasons we have been able, to gather from the scriptures, for the observance of the Jewish Sabbath; and if Paul, or any of the New Testament writers, thought it binding on Christians, why have they been entirely silent on a question of this importance, -with the exception of such expressions as these

Let no man judge you in respect to the Sabbath. Col. ii, 1

One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully permuted In his own mind. Rom. xiv, 5

Those who talk of "the Jewish Sabbath," and " the Christian Sabbath " do not talk the language of the Holy Scriptures ; for the only weekly Sabbath of the Bible is " the Sabbath of the LORD thy GOD." It is also called " MY holy day," " the holy of the LORD," (see Isa. lviii, 13.) " THY holy Sabbath," (see Neb. ix, 14,) and " THE Sabbath." The Jews had a number of Sabbaths, and they are spoken of in the following language : " In the first day of the month ye shall have a sabbath," 16 from even to even," (on the tenth day of the seventh month) shall ye celebrate "YOUR Sabbath." See Lev. xxiii, 24, 32. In Hosea, ii, 11, they are called HER sabbaths.

But some, in order to bring God's Holy Sabbath into disrepute and. contempt, call it " the Jewish Sabbath."

Eld. Marsh gives the following sentence as the language of the Apostle Paul : "Let no man judge you in respect to the Sabbath. Col. ii, 16." Why not give the text as it reads ? Why thus mangle the pure word for the sake of making out one's theory ? This looks too much like "handling the word of God deceitfully." I will here give four translations of this text, that the reader may more clearly see that Paul does not refer to THE SABBATH OF THE LORD," but to the sabbaths of the Jews.

" Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new-moon, or of the sabbath-days."

"Let none therefore judge you in meat, or drink, or in respect of a feast-day, or of the new moon, or of sabbath-days.—Wesley.

Wherefore, let no one judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a • festival, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths.—Macknight.

" Let no man therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect to a holy-day, or the new moon, or the sabbaths."—Whiting.

Rom. xiv, 5, does not refer to the seventh-day Sabbath. Any honest person searching for the truth will see by reading the whole chapter that the apostle's subject was in regard to eating, also feast-days, which some of the church esteemed, and others did not. The word " eateth " is mentioned eleven times, "eat " three, " meat " four, " drink " twice ; but the Sabbath, which is considered to be the subject of this chapter, by those who teach that 'the Sabbath is abolished, is not introduced ! ! But admitting that the apostle refers to a day of weekly rest, then Rom. *iv 5, is against the observance of the first day as much as the seventh. Therefore, those who observe the first day are not wise in quoting this text to prove us wrong in keeping the seventh

" Let not him that eateth, despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth : for God hath received him." Rom. xiv, 3. The apostle was here giving the Romans a lesson of Christian forbearance in relation to the Jewish views of eating and feastdays, which some still retained. Although these views were incorrect, yet St. Paul did not take measures to rid the church at once of them. He even had Timotheus, his fellow laborer, " whose father was a Greek," circumcised that they might better find access to the Jews. He was " all things to' all men," that "by all means" he might "save some."

" Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God is something."—[Whiting's translation.]--C or. vii, 19.

The keeping of the commandments of God is nowhere in the New Testament spoken of as a thing of little importance as circumcision and feast-days are ; but it is always made a test of Christian fellowship and eternal salvation.

" If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments." Matt. xix. 17. " For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." 1 John v, 3. " He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his COMMANDMENTS, is a LIAR, and the truth is not in him." 1 John ii, 4.

To be continued….