To Correspondents

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 17, 1869

To Correspondents.

A. H. OSBORN: You inquire, “How do you know that the first day of the week is not the Lord’s day? I know that the seventh day is the Lord’s day. But how was it changed?”

ANSWER.—There is no record in the Scriptures that the Lord has ever changed his day. In the beginning he reserved the seventh day to be devoted exclusively to his worship, and to the acknowledgment of God as the Creator of heaven and earth. Gen. ii, 1-3; Ex. xx, 8-11. This he calls “my holy day.” Isa. lviii, 13. This day the Son of Man claimed to be Lord of. Mark ii, 28. There is no record that he has divorced this day and taken another. When, therefore, we read in Rev. i, 10, of “the Lord’s day,” we can only understand this to relate to the day which he has alone honored in the Bible as his holy day.

To your further inquiry relative to the time of commencing the day, the answer is, 1. The day of twenty-four hours, or each of the days of the week, embrace both day and night. Gen. i. 2. That from the beginning of the world to this time, the first division of the day has ever been evening or night, and the last, morning or day; and the beginning and end of the day is marked by sunset, or even. Deut. xvi, 6; Lev. xxii, 6, 7; Deut. xxiii, 11; xxiv, 13, 15; Mark i, 32. But when the dawn of the day is spoken of, we understand it to relate, not to the beginning of the twenty-four-hour day, but of the twelve-hour day, which is in the morning. The expression, “in the end of the Sabbath,” means the same as “when the Sabbath was past.” Mark xvi, 1. The day of Christ’s resurrection is sufficiently determined by Mark xvi, 3; Luke xxiv, 21; compare with Matt. xx, 19.

We send you several of our smaller publications; also a catalogue of our books and tracts, with the prices of each. For a commentary on Rev. xxii, we refer you to the work entitled, “Thoughts on the Revelation.”