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. [8] Neither shalt thou steal. [9] Neither 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 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 gives us no less than twenty times, of the covenant that he made on Sinai, they appeal to the dictionary and find this definition: ‘Covenant. A mutual agreement of two or more persons or parties, in writing and under seal,’ etc. Then confining the covenant made on Sinai within this single definition, they look for something that answers thereto, or rather they search for something else besides the Ten Commandments to which they may apply those scriptures that declare the abrogation of the old covenant. So in their literature and preaching they light upon Exod. 19:5-8. ‘Here,’ say they, ‘is an agreement between God and the people; and this promise on the part of Israel to do all that God had spoken, is the covenant made on Sinai.’
“An argument is drawn from the fifth verse, which reads thus: ‘Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people.’ The word ‘covenant’ occurring in the context of the people’s promise to obey all that God had spoken, is used to prove that that agreement alone constituted the covenant. U. Smith asserts in a little work that this agreement, and nothing else, was the old covenant, and that nothing else was abolished by the bringing in of the new order under Christ Jesus.
“1. The Word does not assert that the promise of the people to obey God, alone constitutes the covenant made on Sinai. But it is repeatedly declared that the ten words written in the stone tables were included in the covenant made with Israel at that time and place.
“2. If the response on the part of Israel to obey what God had spoken, only was the covenant; and if nothing else, as U. Smith affirms, was abolished in Christ, then the ceremonial laws, and the penalty of death for the violation of the Sabbath, and the other judgments written in the book of the law, are all yet in force.
“3. If that agreement on the part of the people of God to obey him was the covenant, and nothing else, and if that only was done away in Christ, then it follows that in Christ Jesus we cease to be under covenant obligations to obey God.”
“The word ‘covenant’ in Exodus and Deuteronomy referring to the law of God given on Sinai is from berith in the Hebrew, and the same thing in the New Testament is from the Greek word diatheke. It is translated ‘testament’ thirteen times. And in the following instances, where rendered ‘covenant,’ in the margin it is more correctly translated ‘testament’; Rom. 9:4; Gal. 3:15; 4:24; Heb. 8:6; 12:24; 13:20. It is seen that in Heb. 9:16 the word is used in the sense of a will, such as men make for the disposition of their property, etc.…In Heb. 9:15 the same word is used with reference to both the old and the new testament. If, therefore, diatheke simply means a mutual agreement, then the twenty-seven books we have been in the habit of calling the New Testament are not the ‘new testament.’
“But let us look at their position again. A covenant is a mutual agreement between two or more parties; therefore the Ten Commandments are not the covenant made on Sinai, because they are not such an agreement. Again, say they, ‘The new covenant written in the heart are the Ten Commandments formerly written in stone.’ But the same word, diatheke, occurs in Heb. 9:15 in speaking of both the old testament and the new. Therefore, if the ‘old diatheke’ cannot be the Ten Commandments because the word means a ‘mutual contract,’ then, for the same reason, the ‘new diatheke’ cannot be the Ten Commandments. Thus their scheme to overthrow the fact that the old covenant includes the ten stone-written words over-throws their own position that the Decalog is the new covenant.
“Let us now see what the real Scriptural meaning of the word ‘covenant’ or ‘testament’ is. ‘Testament. 1. A solemn, authentic instrument in writing, by which a person declares his will as to the disposal of his estate and effects after death. 2. One of the two general divisions of the canonical books of the sacred Scriptures; as, the Old Testament; the New Testament.’ These are the only definitions given in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.
“‘Diatheke, any disposition, arrangement, institution, or dispensation: hence a testament, will (Heb. 9:15).— Greenfield
“‘Diatheke, a disposition, arrangement. A testament, a will. The Abrahamic covenant. The Mosaic covenant entered into at Mount Sinai, with sacrifices and the blood of victims (see Exod. 24:3-12; Deut. 5:2). The new covenant, the Gospel Dispensation.’—Robinson’s Lexicon.
“‘Thus, the covenant of Sinai was conditioned by the observance of the Ten Commandments (Exod. 34:27, 28; Lev. 26:15), which are therefore called “Jehovah’s covenant” (Deut. 4:13), a name which was extended to all the books of Moses, if not to the whole body of Jewish canonical Scriptures (2 Cor. 3:13, 14). This last-mentioned covenant, which was renewed at different periods, is one of the two principal covenants between God and man. They are distinguished as old and new (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-13; 10: 16).’—Smith and Barnum’s Dictionary
“Thus, we see by Scriptural use and standard authorities that the word rendered ‘covenant’ signifies a ‘will,’ a ‘dispensation,’ etc., and the Ten-Commandment covenant is cited as an example. The word is properly used to designate the two general divisions of the Bible. The Decalog, properly speaking, is the old covenant, but as the last authority has truthfully observed, the old testament is also used in an extended sense, as including all the books of Moses, or the entire body of the Sinaitic law.
“We have now proved that the very word ‘covenant’ in its Scriptural meaning is in perfect accord with the statements of the Almighty when ‘he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the Ten Commandments; and he wrote them on two tables of stone’ (Deut. 4:13). But once more, the Adventist teachers will cry, ‘A covenant is an agreement with some one, but such is not the Decalog.’ Here is God’s answer by Moses: ‘When I was gone up info the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you’ (Deut. 9:9).”
Every effort to exclude the Decalog from the Sinaitic covenant is squarely against the Bible. But let us examine closer. The Decalog did enter into, and become a part of, an agreement between the Lord and Israel. The Decalog was the basis of the whole arrangement at Sinai. Therefore, by way of eminence, it alone was frequently called “the covenant.”
We open at Exod. 19 and read: “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai” (vs. 1). Moses was mediator between the Lord and the children of Israel (see vs. 3). Moses came down and delivered to Israel God’s terms. “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people” (vss. 5, 7). The people answered, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do” (vs. 8). Here was an agreement between God and Israel. They agreed to obey his covenant, and he agreed to bless them.
Next they prepared to hear his voice, to hear the covenant (vss. 9-25). Then chapter 20 begins with God speaking aloud to Israel, and the very first thing heard are the Ten Commandments, extending to verse 17. He then follows the Ten Commandments with various precepts through Moses, to the end of chapter 23. “Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord.” “And all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do” (chap. 24:3). Then “Moses wrote all the words of the Lord” in a book, verse 4, and that book was called “the book of the covenant” (vs. 7).
“And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be 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” (Exod. 24:7, 8).
That closed the covenant. It embraced all included in the record from Exod. 19:1 to Exod. 24:8, for this is the covenant in detail written out. It was a testament, disposition, arrangement; and an agreement between God and the Israelites. But is the Decalog included in it? Adventists might as well deny that the sun shines. It is written out in full in the covenant (Exod. 20:1-17); and the seventh-day Sabbath is in its very heart (vss. 8-11). We are sure that this was the first or old covenant. Paul quotes Exod. 24:7, 8, and says it was “the first covenant” (see Heb. 9:18-20). That settles it.
The Decalog was such a prominent part of the covenant that the stones on which it was written were called “the tables of the covenant” (Deut. 9:9), the book in which it was written was called “the book of the covenant” (Exod. 24:7); and the ark in which it was deposited was called “the ark of the covenant” (Deut. 31:26).
All Saturday-keepers rest their claims for the observance of that day upon the Decalog. But the Decalog was a prominent part of the “old” or Sinaitic covenant. With that covenant the seventh-day Sabbath stands or falls; for there is no possible chance for the law-teachers to take their Sabbath out of the first covenant, made on Sinai. The enjoining of the observance of that day lies in the very heart of that covenant. If the code is in force, the seventh day is in force, for that is the day specified in it; but if that enactment of Jehovah’s was superseded by the new testament, in this dispensation, then the seventh day is abolished.
Uriah Smith (leading Adventist) says in his book entitled Two Covenants, page 5, “If the Ten Commandments constituted the old covenant, then they are forever gone.” The Bible declares in so many words that “the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments,” is the very covenant God made with Israel “when he brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Exod. 34:28; 1 Kings 8:9, 21). Then, the Ten Commandments constituted, or were included in, the old covenant, and “are forever gone.”
All chapters from The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.
The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. By H. M. Riggle, 1922. Life Assurance Ministries, Inc.
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