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The Commandments Are for All, May 20
Also the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—everyone who keeps
from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast My covenant—even them I will
bring to My holy mountain.
Isaiah 56:6, 7
, NKJV.
Under the mosaic law, strangers and eunuchs were excluded from the full
enjoyment of the privileges granted to Israel. But the prophet declares that a time
is coming when these restrictions will cease. The holy oracles were especially
committed to the Jews; not to be an Israelite was not to belong to the favored people
of God. The Jews had come more and more to regard themselves as superior by
divine right to every other people upon the earth; yet they had not been careful
to maintain their separate and holy character by rendering obedience to all the
commandments of God.
Now the prophet declares that the stranger who will love and obey God shall
enjoy the privileges that have belonged exclusively to the chosen people. Hitherto,
circumcision and a strict observance of the ceremonial law had been the conditions
upon which Gentiles could be admitted to the congregation of Israel; but these
distinctions were to be abolished by the gospel. [
Isaiah 56:6-8
quoted.] ...
The first part of [
Isaiah 58
] brings to view a people who apparently delight in
the service of God; they seek Him daily, “as a nation that did righteousness, and
forsook not the ordinance of their God.” Yet their lives are not right before the
Lord; for He commands His prophet, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a
trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.”
...
This prophecy reaches down the centuries to the time when the man of sin
attempted to make void one of the precepts of God’s law, to trample under foot the
original Sabbath of Jehovah, and in its stead exalt one of his own creation. And
when the Christian world set aside God’s holy Sabbath, and in its place accept a
common working day, unsanctioned by a single “Thus saith the Lord,” they are
encouraging infidelity, and virtually acknowledging the supremacy of that power by
whose authority alone the change has been effected. The rejection of the Sabbath
has led to the rejection of the whole law, and thousands of professed Christians now
boldly declare it void.—
The Signs of the Times, February 28, 1884
.
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