The Sabbath

and the Lord's Day

The Covenant From Sinai Abolished

abrogation of the old covenant. "So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free." Not under the Sinaitic covenant, but under the new covenant of grace in Christ Jesus. "These two covenants do not mix or blend together in the same heart, nor in the same dispensation." To accept Christ in his fulness is to cast out Hagar and her Sabbath.

  "But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant,. which was established upon better promises. For if that i first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying. Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away" (Heb. 8:6 13).

  Here the two covenants are clearly contrasted. The one from Sinai is termed "the first covenant," "old covenant," "faulty" covenant, which "decayeth," "waxeth old," and "is ready to vanish away." That ends the old covenant, the one from Sinai, the ten commandments, as we have proved. But the new testament is termed the "second covenant," "new covenant," "better covenant," "not according to" the first, "written in our minds and hearts." There is no way to evade this plain testimony.

  Paul says that God made the first with Israel—"in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of [40] the land of Egypt." "Now, what covenant did God make with Israel after their exodus? Here is a perfect answer: 'And I have set there a place for the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord, which he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt' (1 Kings 8:21). It was that which Moses deposited in the ark; i. e., 'the tables of the covenant' (Heb. 9:4). And turning back to 1 Kings 8, we read in verse 9, 'There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.'

  "So, then, Jeremiah tells us that the former covenant was that which God made with Israel when he took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, and that was the covenant which he wrote on tables of stone and put in the ark. There is no possible evading the truth here.

  "After quoting the very scriptures above cited, U. Smith, in his tract on The Two Covenants says, 'They ask us, "What can be plainer? There was nothing in the ark but the two tables of stone, containing the Ten Commandments: yet Solomon says that in the ark was the covenant which the Lord made with the fathers of his people, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. Therefore those commandments were the covenant." And having established this point, they have but to quote Paul's testimony, that the old covenant has waxed old, and vanished away, to reach the conclusion so long and anxiously sought, that the Ten Commandments have been abolished, carrying with them the obnoxious seventhday Sabbath into their eternal tomb.

  "Yes, we do humbly ask in the name of all reason, What can be plainer than the positive, unequivocal statements of the Bible, especially where it is emphatically and repeatedly declared that the tables of stone were included in the covenant made with the Israelites at Sinai when they came out of Egypt? Indeed, were we to disbelieve all these scriptures, how could we credit the Bible at all ? Accepting the inspired record, it is settled forever that the first covenant included the Decalog, which is ready [41] to vanish away.' 'Is nigh disappearing.'—Young's Translation. 'Abolished.'—Thomson.

  "Therefore all the disputers of the gospel of Christ, and vain janglers for the law of Moses, are clinging to an old decayed system that in God's order vanished away [over] nineteen hundred years ago. And all these modern folks are as zealous as their ancient brethren—compassing. land and sea, not to convert men to Christ, but to puts upon them the yoke of the law, which they themselves cannot bear. Surely this is Nehushtan—a piece of brass.

  "God directed Moses to make a brazen serpent in the wilderness. It was all right for its object. But 765 years. after that we find idolatrous Israel worshipping that serpent. But King Hezekiah, we are told, 'removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan' (2 Kings 18:4).

  "What is the difference between the worship of that serpent, and the worship of those who in many cases actually make a god out of that Sabbath, which, though it was appointed of God for a certain purpose and time as the brazen serpent also had its use, has passed away in the order of his will?

  "Doubtless, those ancient worshipers reasoned just as the modern ones do: 'God is immutable, unchangeable therefore his laws are unchangeable. But "we know that God spake to Moses," commanding the children of Israel to look up to this serpent; therefore we will continue to look to it forever.' "

  " Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will [Testament] we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all' (Heb. 10:9, 10). Praise God! The Spirit gives us these words as a present testimony. We are sanctified.

  "Two covenants are set in comparison all the way through this Epistle, called the 'first covenant,' and the 'second.' The former is very commonly called 'the law.' And here we reach the same end of the first covenant to which we have been brought time and again in the inspired [42]

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