God’s Law Immutable
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5:18
. The law of God, being a revelation of His will, a transcript of His
character, must forever endure, “as a faithful witness in heaven.” Not
one command has been annulled; not a jot or tittle has been changed.
Says the psalmist: “Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven.”
“All His commandments are sure. They stand fast for ever and ever.”
Psalm 119:89
;
111:7, 8
.
In the very bosom of the Decalogue is the fourth commandment,
as it was first proclaimed: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou,
nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days
the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day,
and hallowed it.”
Exodus 20:8-11
.
The Spirit of God impressed the hearts of those students of His
word. The conviction was urged upon them that they had ignorantly
transgressed this precept by disregarding the Creator’s rest day. They
began to examine the reasons for observing the first day of the week
instead of the day which God had sanctified. They could find no
evidence in the Scriptures that the fourth commandment had been
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abolished, or that the Sabbath had been changed; the blessing which
first hallowed the seventh day had never been removed. They had
been honestly seeking to know and to do God’s will; now, as they saw
themselves transgressors of His law, sorrow filled their hearts, and they
manifested their loyalty to God by keeping His Sabbath holy.
Many and earnest were the efforts made to overthrow their faith.
None could fail to see that if the earthly sanctuary was a figure or pat-
tern of the heavenly, the law deposited in the ark on earth was an exact
transcript of the law in the ark in heaven; and that an acceptance of the
truth concerning the heavenly sanctuary involved an acknowledgment
of the claims of God’s law and the obligation of the Sabbath of the
fourth commandment. Here was the secret of the bitter and determined
opposition to the harmonious exposition of the Scriptures that revealed
the ministration of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. Men sought to
close the door which God had opened, and to open the door which He
had closed. But “He that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth,
and no man openeth,” had declared: “Behold, I have set before thee