Where’s the Danger? by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 6, 1882

Where’s the Danger?

By Editor

A SISTER in Oakland has permitted us to copy the following from a letter which she lately received. The writer is an educated lady, and a member of the Episcopal Church:—

"The papers you have been sending I have not read thoroughly, and cannot therefore give so positive an opinion as if I had. I have thought them put forth in a very pleasing way, with short articles, well calculated both in sentiment and style, to please the mass of the American people. The Christian duties they inculcate are excellent, and tellingly, yet pleasingly urged. In relation to their doctrine—ah! there is just the danger. It really does not matter one bit whether we believe in the seventh day or the first day, i. e., in the Sabbath, or day of rest, or the ‘Sun-day’—the very day of our Lord, who is the Sun of righteousness. In the very earliest ages of the church both days were observed; but soon the old Jewish day was allowed to fall out of use."

These remarks, coming from a person of reading, are worthy of notice.

1. We are at a loss to know where is the danger of teaching and keeping the seventh day if "it does not matter one bit whether we believe in the seventh day or the first."

2. We cannot help wondering, if the first day were enforced by a plain commandment in the Bible, and the seventh day had no Bible evidence to sustain it, whether professed lovers of the Bible and actual lovers of Sunday would then say it makes no difference which day we keep. If they will stop to examine themselves carefully they may discover that they are indulging self-deception.

3. When the writer, in the service of "the church," responds to the reading of the fourth commandment, saying: "Lord, incline our hearts to keep this law," does she then think it makes no difference whether she keeps it or something else as a substitute for it? And if the latter, is the response worship or mockery?

4. The reference to Sunday as a day kept in honor of our Lord as the Sun of righteousness would indicate that the writer really believes that that was the origin of that name or title to the first day of the week. Yet we cannot believe that any person of average intelligence and information really believes any such thing. All who know anything of the truth in this matter know that the old Roman designation of dies solis was of heathen origin, and was derived from the consecration of the first day of the week to the center of our planetary system. It was not of Christian origin, and had no reference to our Lord as the Sun of righteousness. The first law for Sunday keeping of which history makes mention was that of Constantine, of whose decree Dr. Schaff, in his Church History says:—

"He enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum or dies Domini, but under its old astrological or heathen title of dies solis [day of the sun, or Sun's day], familiar to all his subjects."

And again Dr. Schaff says, he—"Reverenced all the gods, as mysterious powers, especially Apollo, the god of the sun, to whom in the year 308 he presented munificent gifts."

His famous edict for the observance of "the venerable day of the sun" was proclaimed two years before he made any profession of Christianity; and after he began to give honor to Christ he did not fully renounce the service of Apollo, as Dr. Schaff further says:—

"Even later, he placed his new residence under the protection of the God of the martyrs and the heathen goddess of Fortune; and down to the end of his life he retained the title and dignity of a Pontifex Maximus, or high priest of the heathen hierarchy. His coins bore on the one side the letters of the name of Christ, on the other, the figure of the sun-god, and the inscription, Sol invictus."

The Sunday-school Union Bible Dictionary says:—

"Sunday was a name given by the heathen to the first day of the week, because it was the day on which they worshiped the sun."

The worship of the sun was, not only contrary to the spirit of right worship, but, expressly forbidden by Jehovah. Deut. 4:19; 17:2-5; Job 31:26-28. Thus the consecration of the first day of the week and giving it the title of Sunday, so far from having any foundation in respect to the authority of the God of Heaven, was in defiance of his authority and in violation of his express commandment. We can give much more evidence in harmony with that given above from Dr. Schaff and the S. S. Bible Dictionary. Not a word of evidence can be offered to the contrary. To ascribe the consecration of Sunday, or the conferring of that title to the first day of the week, to a regard for Christ as the "Sun of righteousness," is to pervert the facts of history which must be known to all.

5. It is not quite true that both days were kept "in the very earliest ages of the church." Dr. Scott says the "change, from the seventh to the first, appears to have been gradually and silently introduced, by example rather than by express precept." On Acts 20:7. No "express precept" was ever given for the observance of the first day; a gradual introduction is very indefinite, but such was the case, though it did not commence "in the very earliest ages of the church." Dr. Matthew Henry, in his Commentary, says the first day was not called the Sabbath in the first two centuries of the Christian era. Every one who knows anything of the history of the early ages of the church, knows that this statement of Dr. Henry is correct. Nor was the title of "Lord’s day" applied to it in the earliest ages of the church. These titles—Sabbath and Lord’s day—are given to the seventh day alone in all the Scriptures; and it was only when the opinions of the doctors of the church were elevated to equal authority with the Scriptures that they were given to "the venerable day of the sun."

6. Why call the seventh day "the Jewish day?" Is it not true that God rested on the seventh day when he made heaven and earth? Gen. 2:3. Is it not true that it was, for this reason called the Sabbath, or rest of the Lord? "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Why treat with such contempt that which in the Scriptures is called "the holy of the Lord, honorable?" Isa. 58:13. If due regard were paid to Scripture facts and Scripture language, the Sabbath of the Lord God would not be so recklessly trampled under foot. It is only by hiding the plain word of the Lord on the subject that the feelings of the people are fortified to place reproachful epithets upon the most honorable institution erected in the holy Scriptures.

We sometimes feel almost like apologizing to our readers for saying so much on such plain and evident points of truth; but how can we avoid it when educated people are persisting in enforcing upon the public mind such unscriptural positions? We wish there were no occasion to defend plain statements of the word of God. Surely there should be none, especially among professed believers in the word. But while others persist in obscuring the truth, we consider it our duty, with equal persistency, to tear away the veil and let the light shine out to the world.