Primary Anti-Sabbatarian Texts: A Discussion of Walter Martin's Comments Relative to the Sabbath and the Lord's Day—Concluded

Romans 13: 8-10

In a discussion of this passage the author under review says, "... in the present passage the Holy Spirit twice declares that love fulfills the law. They [Seventh-day Adventists] can­not exempt the Sabbath from this context without destroying the unity of the 'Eternal Ten,' hence their dilemma." He continues, "How any student of New Testament Greek could read the unmistakable lan­guage of the apostle and then exclude the Sabbath commandment from his argument, passes my understanding." Mr. Martin builds up a straw man and feels good about having demolished it. Seventh-day Advent­ists are the people who down through the years have valiantly stood for the unity of the "Eternal Ten." It is Mr. Martin and men like him who would say that a Chris­tian should live in harmony with nine of the commandments but that he is free to violate the fourth. Seventh-day Adventists are not in any dilemma, but those who would try to remove from the Decalogue the fourth commandment are. We do not exclude the Sabbath commandment from the great commandment of love.

In discussing this passage, however, Mr. Martin has apparently forgotten the words of Jesus: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the sec­ond is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two com­mandments hang all the law and the proph­ets" (Matt. 22:37-40). The law of love was fully enunciated in the Old Testament (Deut. 6:4, 5; Lev. 19:18). Love fulfilled the law in Old Testament times, even at the time the Ten Commandments were given, just as well as it does now. The basic principle back of the first four command­ments of the Decalogue is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." These first four commandments help people to understand that the principle of love to God means that they shall not have any other sod besides the Lord, that they shall not worship images of other gods, that they shall not take the name of God in vain, and that they shall remember God's Sabbath day to keep it holy. Jesus said that this great commandment to love the Lord is the great­est of all the commandments, and the first four of the Ten Commandments merely spell out more fully what is included in it.

The commandment to love one's neigh­bor as oneself is described by Jesus as the "second" commandment. The last six com­mandments of the Decalogue spell out more fully the principle of loving one's neighbor as oneself. A person who loves his neighbor in this way certainly will first of all honor his parents; he will not kill anyone, but respect his neighbor's life; he will not commit adultery, respecting his neighbor's person; he will not steal, respect­ing his neighbor's property; neither will he bear false witness nor covet that which is his neighbor's, because he is to love his neighbor as himself. In other words, the "second" commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," does not abrogate any of the last six commandments of the Decalogue. It merely comprehends them and is the over-all principle concerning the application of which these six command­ments give us further instruction. By the same principle the first commandment to love God with all the heart does not abro­gate any one of the first four command­ments, for they are included in its over-all principle. We do not see that Adventists face any dilemma here. In Romans 13:8-10 the Lord was dealing only with the second great principle to love thy neighbor as thyself, and therefore He quoted the com­mandments from the second table of the Decalogue.

One who examines the context of this passage will note that in this section of the book of Romans the apostle Paul is dealing with the relationships that should obtain between men. In the first part of the book of Romans the apostle discussed in a mag­nificent way man's relationship with God, showing that one is saved by his faith in God and in the atonement provided for him. In the last part of the book the apostle seeks to show how one who has been saved by faith will relate himself to his fellows. It is for this reason that in the thirteenth chapter the apostle did not introduce what Jesus called the first great commandment of loving God with all the heart and includ­ing the more specific spelling out of this in the first four commandments of the Deca­logue. Inasmuch as he was discussing strictly the relationship of man to man, he cited only the second great principle—love to one's neighbor—and in particular those specifications that show that an individual who loves his neighbor will not commit adultery with him, will not kill him, will not steal from him, or bear false witness against him, or covet anything that is his. Paul is by no stretch of the imagination saying that when a person loves his neigh­bor as himself he need not observe these last six commandments; he is saying, rather, that the over-all principle of love to one's neighbor includes all of these. And to keep them out of love is the only effectual way, for love fills in all the gaps between the commandments; it reaches over them and underneath and around them; but it does not go contrary to any one of them.

As we have said, from chapter twelve of Romans onward Paul is discussing man's relationship with man. Certainly the apos­tle Paul would have been shocked had he known that Christian men in later times would use his words as if the first great commandment of loving God with all the heart, embracing the first four of the spe­cific commandments of the Decalogue, had no relevance for Christians. It really amazes us that Romans 13:8-10 could be advanced as an argument for not keeping the seventh-day Sabbath. It could just as well be ad­vanced as an argument that it is all right to worship idols or to take the name of God in vain. Seventh-day Adventists stand for the unity of the "Eternal Ten," and with the Lord's help we will seek to fulfill these ten, not out of legalistic observance, but because we want to love God with all our hearts and want to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Romans 14:4-13

We agree with our friend Walter Martin that the fourteenth chapter of Romans calls upon Christians not to engage in judging one another. God is the judge of all man­kind, and it is He who decides on the moral worth of individuals. A human being can­not know for sure the reasoning and the convictions of another person, and is in no position therefore to judge whether that person is violating his basic convictions of right and wrong. Christians are, however, obligated to bear witness of their faith in Christ and to preach the Word in season and out of season. Informed, enlightened Seventh-day Adventists do not try to take over God's prerogative of judging His serv­ants, but we do feel it is our duty to preach the Word of God as we understand it. We do not consider that we are "passing judg­ment" on those who observe the first day of the week when we set forth what we con­sider to be the Biblical teaching on the necessity of Christians to shape their lives in harmony with all the Decalogue, as well as with the other teachings of the Word of God. We would leave the Bible itself to do its own cutting and convicting.

Before we discuss the teaching of the fourteenth chapter of Romans, we would make reference to several statements of Wal­ter Martin in this section of his book. He intimates that Seventh-day Adventists keep the seventh-day Sabbath because we believe the Spirit of Prophecy was manifested through Mrs. White and that she confirmed the teaching of Joseph Bates regarding the seventh-day Sabbath. Seventh-day Advent­ists have never based the doctrine of the Sabbath on anything but the Bible. It is the supreme court of appeal and the only authority to us in matters of doctrine. We do not believe that the verdict of that court invalidates our teachings. We feel that our friend Martin and others have dealt very loosely with many passages of the Bible. For instance, on page 172 this author says, "The early Christian church met upon the first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:2)." He has many times charged that Adventists do not consider the context of Scripture pas­sages nor the grammatical construction. We ask, How is it possible to claim 1 Corin­thians 16:2 in support of his contention that the early church met on the first day of the week? Even a cursory examination of the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 16:2 shows that the apostle Paul is counseling the Corinthian believers to store up in their homes free-will gifts for the great offering that he was assembling on behalf of the needy Christian believers in Jerusalem. The Greek phrase can be translated in no other way than "at one's home" or "by himself." The phrase is an almost exact equivalent of the French chez lui, "at one's home." It is clear that the apostle is telling the people to lay these funds aside so that when he comes they will have it stored up and can merely turn it over to him, and he will not have to make an extended appeal for funds. Second Corinthians, chapters 8 and 9, give full details of this great offering that the apostle Paul is assembling, and in 1 Corin­thians 16:2 he is encouraging the believers to lay money aside for that purpose. Despite the clear intent of this passage, from its context and linguistic analysis, some, Mar­tin included, grasp at it like a drowning person at a straw for support of their theory that the early church met upon the first day of the week. This type of interpreta­tion certainly is insufficient to establish any such doctrine.

Now let us look at Romans 14, in which Paul describes two groups in the church— the "strong" and the "weak." The apostle says that the weak eat vegetables, but an­other thinks that he can eat all things. In using a comparable passage of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 8 and 9, we discern immediately that Paul is not speaking of the matter of clean and unclean foods, but rather is discussing a problem that was tremendously acute for the early Christians living in Greek cities. This problem arose primarily because pagan priests and others frequently sold in the market place for food, animals that had previously been offered in the temples as sacrifices to the gods. Some Chris­tians maintained that if a believer ate food, even of a clean animal, that had been of­fered before these heathen gods, it would be acknowledging the existence of such a god, and having communion with him. Since they could not tell for sure whether meat purchased in the market place had been offered before idols, some of the Chris­tians maintained that they would not eat any meat at all, but to be sure, would eat only vegetables. Other Christians believed that there was no other god except the Lord, and therefore they didn't care whether animals had been offered before the heathen idols or not. They would eat them anyway. Over such a matter as this the apostle urged the believers not to judge one another or engage in extended acri­monious debates about it, but each was to honor the convictions of the other on this matter concerning which God had not spoken.

In the same way the apostle said, verse 5: "One man esteemeth one day above an­other, and another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Here again, to under­stand this passage we must place ourselves in the position of the early Christian be­lievers. Many of them had come out of Judaism and had been used to observing the annual Jewish feasts and the accom­panying ceremonial rites. It was very diffi­cult for such people to abandon their re­ligious practices of long standing. In the New Testament we read that many of the people in the church at Jerusalem contin­ued to take part in certain of these Jewish rites, and they even urged the apostle Paul to take part in them also. Acts 21:21-27. Paul often attended these great annual feasts after his conversion (Acts 18:21, etc.), not because he felt any religious obligation to do so, but because it afforded wonderful opportunities to witness of Christ to the multitudes who congregated there.

Under such circumstances it seemed best to allow these various long-ingrained prac­tices to disappear gradually rather than to insist that, inasmuch as these ceremonial requirements pointing forward to Christ had no more validity after Christ had come, Christians must abandon them at once. In view of these facts, it becomes apparent that the apostle Paul was not teaching the Romans that they should not live in har­mony with the provisions of the Decalogue, and its weekly Sabbath, but that he was telling them they were free to use their own judgment as to whether they would have any part in the Jewish festivals and ceremonial requirements. The fact that he said the strong had laid them aside shows that he himself considered that Christian believers would be wiser to abandon these things, but that it was wrong for them to judge the person who out of long habit and convictions would like to go on with them.

The Jews hated the apostle Paul because he taught that the requirements of Juda­ism that had pointed forward to the Mes­siah had no more validity now that the Messiah had come. They rejected the idea that the Messiah had come, and so they hated Paul for teaching the people that they could abandon those parts of the Jew­ish law that foreshadowed the coming of the Messiah. However, not once do we find the Jews accusing Paul of being a breaker of the Sabbath day. They were anxious to find every fault with him that they could, and had the apostle been teaching that the seventh-day Sabbath—which God had given at Creation and which antedated the ceremonial practices in connection with the sanctuary services—had been abrogated, they would immediately have brought charges against him for Sabbathbreaking. However, in no place do they accuse the apostle Paul of this. Rather, the apostle himself when on trial before Agrippa spoke of his manner of life as follows: "I con­tinue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come" (Acts 26:22). Paul did not appeal to his apostolic authority for teach­ing that the seventh-day Sabbath had been abolished and that the Christian faith was now keeping the first day of the week in honor of Christ's resurrection. He stoutly asserted that he taught nothing except that which the prophets and Moses did say should come. Certainly the prophets and Moses did not prophesy of the abolishing of the seventh-day Sabbath and the setting up of the first day of the week as the Lord's day.

The efforts of some of our Christian brethren to discredit the great moral law of God, which God gave to show men the way in which He desires them to live, bring discouragement to us who are trying to fol­low in the footsteps of Christ and are trying to abide by the Word of God. We shudder when efforts are made to show that the law of God is contrary to the best interests of men, that it is against us and contrary to us. Anciently the Lord told His people: "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?" (Deut. 10:12, 13). God said He had given the commandments for our good. We Adventists thank God for His law, in which we discern the way that He would have us live. And we are grateful to it when it points out errors in our lives, for then, instead of being insensitive to our danger, we turn to Christ for forgiveness and seek Him for strength to live according to His law. We ask Him to help us love Him with all our hearts and love our neigh­bors as ourselves, that we might ful­fill His will for us. We feel that Satan, the great archenemy of God and man, is trying to bring discredit upon the law of God be­cause it is that law that brought conviction of sin to him, and because it convicts man­kind of sin, and leads them to turn to their Saviour and to escape from sin's grasp.

As a people we want to take our stand firmly upon the Bible and under the ban­ner of Jesus Christ. We heed His counsel that the two great commandments are to love God with all our hearts and our neigh­bor as ourselves; and we understand that these two embody in principle all the teachings and provisions of the Word of God. We repeat that if we love our neighbor as our­selves, we will not steal from him or bear false witness against him. Also, if we love God with all our hearts, we will not violate His holy Sabbath day any more than we would bow before idols. We reverence the words of our Saviour, "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Com­forter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth" (John 14:15-17). We feel that it would be presumptuous for us to seek the great blessing of the presence  of the Spirit of truth if we are willfully vio­lating His Word. We cannot ignore such scriptural admonitions as "For this is the love of God, that we keep his command­ments: and his commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3).

To sum it up, Seventh-day Adventists be­lieve that Christ is our Saviour and also our Lord. We do not believe that our Lord who forgives us our sins leaves us wallow­ing in our sins. Such reasoning does despite to the grace of God. We believe our Lord and Saviour has a program of living for those who are His sons and daughters. We do not believe that Christians can contrib­ute in the least degree to their own salvation, for salvation is a free gift from God through faith as we accept Christ as our Saviour. At the same time we believe that one who accepts Christ as Saviour is willing to renounce all sin. With the apostle Paul we say, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid" (Rom. 6:1, 2).

The good news of salvation reached us when we were lost, like the prodigal in the far country. By faith we accept Christ's forgiveness, but we are not content to stay in the far country. We feel that we owe an allegiance to the One who loved us with an everlasting love and who gave His life that we might have forgiveness. We believe in "obedience to the faith" (Rom. 1:5). We accept the forgiveness and the rest that Christ offers us; we are ready also to take up His yoke. We agree with John R. Stott, rector of All Soul's Church in London, who wrote in the magazine Eternity, September, 1959, page 17: "In saying that saving faith includes obedience, I mean that in true faith there is an element of submission. Faith is directed towards a Person. It is in fact a complete commitment to this Person involving not only an acceptance of what is offered but a humble surrender to what is or may be demanded."

We believe that God has called His sons and daughters unto holiness, but that it is impossible to maintain the forgiveness of our Lord and receive His free justification and sanctification if we willingly continue to violate a program of life which He has outlined for us, and part of this outline is in the Decalogue, including the Sabbath commandment. We would heed the words of the apostle James, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what man­ner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed" (James 1:22-25). We look into the mirror of God's Word and we find there a picture of ourselves as those needing the grace of Christ. We accept that grace. We find in God's mirror a fountain for sin and uncleanness, but we see in there the image of our Saviour in whose footsteps we are to follow. We see in this mirror the revealed will of God, and we see that to please Him we should fashion our lives ac­cording to His revealed will. It is for this reason that we gladly and willingly keep the seventh day of the week, the day that God has called "My holy day," and the only true Lord's day. Governor Mark Hat­field, writing in the same issue of Eternity, said: "But the man who looks into the per­fect mirror of God's law, the law of liberty, and makes a habit of doing so is not the man who sees and forgets. He puts the law into practice and he wins true happi­ness.

"If a man is seeking a practical faith, he must turn to the knowledge and truth found in the great textbook of our faith, the Holy Bible. And when he finds this truth, then he applies it, he lives it, he practices it."

With this principle we are in perfect agreement and it is this type of practice that we are seeking for ourselves.