The Sabbath

and the Lord's Day

The Covenant From Sinai

THE FIRST OR OLD COVENANT FROM SINAI INCLUDED THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, AND
ENJOINED THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SEVENTH DAY SABBATH

  We now come to the Sabbath as instituted in the Ten Commandment law given on Sinai. With this law the Sabbath either stands or falls. A covenant was made with the children of Israel "from Sinai, which gendereth to bondage" (Gal. 4:24). Paul terms it the "first covenant" (Heb. 8:7); the "old" covenant (vs. 13). The question, then, to be settled is, What constituted the old or first covenant which came from Sinai? The Bible answer is clear. "And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone." "And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments" (Exod. 34:4, 28). "The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us.... The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire, . . . saying, . . . [1] Thou shalt have no other gods before me. [2] Thou shalt not make thee any graven image: . . . thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them.... [3] Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. ... [4] Keep the Sabbath Day.... The seventh day is the Sabbath.... [5] Honor thy father and thy mother. . . . [6] Thou shalt not kill. [7] Neither shalt thou commit adultery. 1 81 Neither shalt thou steal. [9] Neither [31] shalt thou bear false witness.... [10] Neither shalt thou covet.... These words spake the Lord unto all your assembly in the mount: . . . and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me" (Deut. 5:2 22).

  "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. 4:13).

  "when I was going up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you" (Deut. 9:9). "The Lord gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant." (vs. 11).

  "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). "There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone" (1 Kings 8:9), "the tables of the covenant" (Heb. 9:4).

  Comments could not make these texts prove more clearly that the ten commandments were the covenant from Sinai. Eight clear texts declare that that "covenant" was "the Ten Commandments."

  I shall next prove that the breaking of any of the Ten Commandments was called breaking the covenant.

  "They have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt: for they went and served other gods, and worshipped them" (Deut. 29:25, 26). "This people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of strangers . . . and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them" (Deut. 31:16).

  "And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; . . . this people hath transgressed my covenant" (Judges 2:19, 20).

  "Ye have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God, . . . and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them" (Josh. 23:16). Also read 1 Kings 11:9 11; Jer. 11:10; 22:9.

  Here we have seven texts which declare that by the [32] children of Israel's breaking the first commandments of the Decalog they "broke," "forsook," and "transgressed" God's covenant. This proves beyond question that the Decalog was the first covenant; for "the Lord had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them" (2 Kings 17:35).

  Again in 2 Kings 17:15, 16, we read that they made "molten images" and worshipped them, and by so doing rejected "his covenant that he made with their fathers." So by breaking the second commandment of the Decalog they rejected his covenant. "Lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord . . . and make you a graven image, or the likeness of anything" (Deut. 4:23).

  On account of Israel's stealing and coveting, thus breaking the eighth and tenth commandments of the Decalog, God said, "Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant" (Josh. 7:10 12, 21). By breaking the sixth commandment Israel forsook the covenant. (2 Kings 19:9, 10)

  Surely the twenty foregoing texts are sufficient to prove that the "Ten Commandments" were the first covenant, the one from Sinai. It must be a desperate case that will cause people to reject these plain statements of the Bible, and look elsewhere for that covenant.

  "Therefore it is fixed and settled by all the above quotations, and the concurrence of all other scriptures, that the Sinai covenant embraced the 'ten words' of the stone tables. Now, the law for the seventh day Sabbath is found in this covenant, written on stone. Therefore every time the Word of God declares that the covenant delivered on Sinai is abolished it asserts the abrogation of the seventh day Sabbath. And because of the strong array of New Testament scriptures which positively assert the abrogation of that Ten Commandment covenant made on Sinai, the Adventists have diligently sought out some new device to deny that the Decalog is the covenant which God made with Israel at that time, and to find something else to which they can apply the covenant.

  "But let us examine their new invention. Avoiding the definition that God give us no less than twenty times, of [33]

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