Nana Yaw Aidoo
Edward Gibbon was an English historian and parliamentarian from the eighteenth century who opposed the Christian religion so much that he apparently believed that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to its embracing of Christianity. This man wrote a series of books designed to detail the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In the fifteenth chapter of the first volume of this monumental work, Gibbon attempted to explain the factors that accounted for the rapid progress of Christianity from its inception.
Among the five reasons that he claimed “were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Christian church” was the contention that the church grew because of “the inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses” (1593-4).
In explaining the kind of inflexible and intolerant zeal of the Jewish people, which he believed the Christians inherited, Gibbons observed that
The religion of Moses seems to be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single nation…Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue (1615-7).
Notice that this infidel historian, upon studying the Old Testament and whatever evidence was at his disposal, concluded that the religion of Moses, which is the Old Law or Judaism, was instituted for a particular country as well as for a single nation. This man, after reading God’s book and other available evidence, could draw no other conclusion than that the Law of Moses was a national religion.
This we believe is the biblical position. The Psalmist wrote that God “sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them” (Psa. 147:19-20). If you were reading the Bible for the first time in your life, separate and apart from any teaching that you might have received from elsewhere, how would you have understood these words of the Psalmist?
The prophet Ezekiel also wrote,
And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the LORD your God; In the day that I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands:… And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them (Eze. 20:5-12).
Would a man honestly read these words written in Ezekiel for the first time in his life, separate and apart from the teachings of men, and draw any conclusion other than that which was drawn by Edward Gibbon?
Seventh-day Adventists, however, read these texts and the entire Bible and fail to see that the Law of Moses (same as the Law of the Lord, cf. 2 Chr. 34:14; Ezra 7:6), was given to the nation of Israel and the nation of Israel alone. It was a national religion.
We can think of no other reason for this “willful ignorance” but these words of our Lord:
And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them (Matt. 13:14-15).
We are also reminded of these words of the apostle Paul: “…for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart “ (2 Cor. 3:14-15).
Edward Gibbon, an infidel, read the Bible and understood it (which proves that the Bible can be understood without a direct operation of the Holy Spirit on a person’s mind (cf. 2 Cor. 1:13; Eph. 3:3-4), and unless a man is simply unwilling to understand or is so determined to be on the side of his teachers and his church (cf. Mark 7:1-9) rather than on the side of the Lord, then the only conclusion that can be drawn from the studying of the Sacred Writings is that the Law of Moses was “instituted for a particular country as well as for a single nation.”
We urge our Adventist friends to please consider the evidence properly.
Work Cited
Gibbon, Edward. “Chapter 15: Progress of the Christian Religion.” The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1. PDF document.
