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*From
"The Sabbath."
"The very first transaction we find taking place
between God and the Israelites after they left Egypt which
answers to the definition of the word 'covenant,' must be
the first covenant, unless some good reason can be shown
why it is not."
So saying, U. Smith lights upon Exod. 19: 7, 8, and calls
the promise of the people there to obey God's voice the
covenant, and nothing more. Now we propose to give five
very good reasons why that covenant comprehended more than
the simple agreement.
First, Mr. Smith does not bring forward one single passage
of Scripture in which that agreement alone is pointed out
as the "first covenant" or the old covenant.
Our second very good reason for believing that Smith's new
discovery in Exod. 19:7, 8, alone is not the covenant that
God made with Israel when he brought them out of Egypt, is
this: The Scriptures positively declare that the covenant
then made was the Ten Commandments that were written in
stone.
1st proof-text, Exod. 34:28.
2nd proof-text, Deut. 5: 3-22.
3rd proof-text, Deut. 4:13.
4th proof-text, Deut. 9:9.
5th proof-text, Deut. 9:11.
6th proof-text, Deut. 9:15.
7th proof-text, 1 Kings 8:21.
8th proof-text, Heb. 9:4.
These eight direct and positive statements of the Bible,
besides many indirect proofs, are, we hope, a sufficient
apology for not believing Mr. Smith's contrary theory.
Our third reason is based upon the fact that Mr. Smith
himself says, page 8, "That the Ten Commandments are
called a covenant we admit." With this concession,
and the fact that it was made at the very time Jeremiah
says that the old covenant was made, which Paul said had
vanished away, I should think myself very foolish to
accept his opposite theory unsupported by one direct
proof-text.
Our fourth reason is this: A hundred things in the Bible
might be picked on for which just as plausible a line of
reasoning and arguments could be fabricated as that
produced by Mr. Smith for his device. But let every mouth
be silent before the Bible, yea, "let God be true and
every man a liar."
An argument against God's description of the covenant is
taken from Exod. 24:6-8, 12 and Heb. 8:17-20, and thus
summed up: "Before Moses was called up to receive
this law of Ten Commandments, which God had written, the
first covenant had been made, closed up, finished, and
ratified by the shedding of the blood. These facts throw a
fortification around this point which it is not possible
either to break or scale. The first covenant was dedicated
with blood. But when that dedication took place, the Ten
Commandments, in visible form, had not been put into the
possession of the people; they had no copy of them; hence
they were not dedicated with blood. Therefore, the Ten
Commandments were not the old covenant" (p. 14).
We have only to attend to the Word of God to prove this
boasted fortress is chaff, which the hail of truth shall
sweep away. Reader, open your Bible and read in Exod.
19:16-19, and you will find that God had already come down
upon Sinai in awful majesty,—"thunders and
lightnings , thick cloud, and the voice of a trumpet
exceeding loud'" etc.
But the Lord sent Moses down to charge the people to keep
outside the prescribed bounds of the mount, lest they
should perish (vs. 21). Then chapter 20 begins with the
voice of God speaking aloud to all the camp of Israel, and
the very first things heard are the Ten Commandments,
extending to verse 17. "And all the people saw the
thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the
trumpet and the mountain smoking," and requested that
God would not speak to them, lest they should die; but
that Moses would be their mediator (vss. 18, 19). Then the
Lord instructed Moses concerning an altar and sacrifices,
to the close of the chapter. Chapter 21 begins a long line
of laws called "judgments," extending to chapter
23:13. Then follows national feasts, and promises, etc.
And in chapter 24:4 we read, "And Moses wrote all the
words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and
builded an altar." "And he took the book of the
covenant, and read it in the audience of the people: and
they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be
i obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on
the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant
which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these
words" (vss. 7, 8).
Now, if Moses "wrote all the words of the Lord,"
he wrote the Ten Commandments also, for it cannot be
denied that the Lord had already spoken them. You see,
dear reader, Mr. Smith's theory would require some
parentheses foisted into the text, making the scripture
read as follows: "And Moses wrote all the words of
the Lord—excepting the Ten Commandments"; "All
that the Lord hath said will we do—excepting the Ten
Commandments"; for Smith says they were not included
in the book of the covenant.
It is a strange thing indeed that Moses would pass by the
most solemn and awful words that God had spoken, and not
write them. But he did write them. There is no supposition
in the case. Happily, that "book of the covenant,
" which Moses dedicated with blood, is still extant.
Nor is it hid away as a sacred relic in some foreign
museum; but, thank God, a copy of it lies open before our
eyes. And in it we read the Ten Commandments recorded as
the very first thing in Exodus 20, after which follow
other laws, which Mr. Smith calls the covenant, leaving
out the very part that God specially calls the covenant.
Indeed, it would appear that the writer had forgotten that
people generally are blessed with the Bible and can read
it. He says that at the time of dedication of the book of
the covenant (Exod. 24:7, 8), "the Ten Commandments,
in visible form, had not been put into the possession of
the people; they had no copy of them." But turning
back to chapter 20, we find that one of the first things
in that book of laws given on Sinai is a copy of the Ten
Commandments. God had spoken them; and before the
dedication of the volume, `'Moses wrote all the words of
the Lord" ( Exod. 24:4).
And as Paul words it, "When Moses had spoken every
precept to all the people, according to the law, he took
the blood of calves, ... saying, This is the blood of the
testament [the same as covenant] which God hath enjoined
on you" (Heb. 9:19, 20).
The fact that the Ten Commandments constitute the
covenant, and are the first part and foundation of the
whole book of the law, is just the reason why it was
denominated "the book of the covenant."
"Every precept according to the law," includes
the ten precepts. Paul says that Moses spoke them. But
turning back to Exod. 24:7, we see that he read them out
of the book which he had written.
So after the whole book of the law had been given, Moses
was called up again on the mountain, and God gave him
tables of stone in which was a copy of the Ten
Commandments (Exod. 24:12), following which he gave him
directions concerning the tabernacle and all its
appurtenances, priestly robes, sacrifices, the altar,
laver, etc., extending to chapter 32. There Moses was
informed of the idolatry of the people, and told to go
down to them. When he saw the golden calf, he threw down
the two tables and broke them (chap. 32:19). Later he
hewed two tables like the first, and went up into the
presence of God on the mount (chapter 34:4). "And the
Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after
the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee
and with Israel. 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. 34:27, 28).
What can be more conclusive? He declared the contents of
the first tables the covenant. And in repeating the same
he says, "After the tenor of these words I have made
a covenant with thee and with Israel." What utter
folly to deny the Word of God! So the props fall, one
after another, from the Adventist structure, as the hammer
of truth strikes them, and light exposes their fallacy.
Speaking of the ten precepts of the covenant, Smith says,
"They are never called the covenant, referring to the
first or old covenant." They are called "the
covenant," in Exod. 34:28; Deut. 9:9, 11; 1 Kings
8:21; Heb. 9:4. Here I he contradicts the Word again.
The "darkness" of Sinai hangs over all their
writings. Two more points, directly bearing on this
covenant quest tion, we shall notice. Alluding to the
death of the old and the introduction of the new covenant,
in Jer. 31:31, 32 and Heb. 8, "I will put my laws
into their minds, and write them in their hearts."
This, he says, was the "law of God in the days of
Jeremiah." If it does not mean this, then it should
read, "I will put a new law into their minds, and
write it in their hearts." Does it say, "I will
write the old law in their hearts?" No, but it does
say, "I will | make a new covenant with the house of
Israel." "This shall be the covenant I will
make: I will put my laws in their inward parts," the
law contained in the new covenant, of course. For we are
told there was "a change of the law." When the
new covenant was confirmed in Christ, 'He took away the
first that he might establish the second' (Heb. 10:9). He
took away the old, which was written in "tables of
stone," that he might write the new in "fleshly
tables of the heart" (see 2 Cor. 3:3).
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