Inconvenient and Unpopular.
By D. A. ROBINSON.
In the long list of objections raised against the observance of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment; the two suggested in the heading of this article are seldom mentioned; and yet with the masses they have more weight than all other objections put together. Strict Sunday-keepers gravely tell us that the fourth commandment simply enjoins the observance of any day in seven, and no day in particular; then in almost the next sentence they charge Sabbatarians with having fallen from grace because they keep the seventh day. But this any-day-in-seven theory, stripped of its dress, is an affirmation that every day is a sabbath. Let us grant, for argument's sake, that the commandment means that any day in seven is the Sabbath. If so, then it means that every day is the Sabbath. To illustrate: I place in a circle seven pieces of coin. I now affirm that any seventh piece is gold. If my affirmation is true, then it follows that each and every piece is gold; and if each piece is not gold, then my statement that any seventh piece is gold is wickedly false. So in the case of the statement that any seventh day is the Sabbath, if it does not prove that all days are sabbaths, it proves that the statement is foolish and false. Well, says one, isn't that just what the Lord meant, that we should keep all days right? Answer: “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work.” If the seventh day there means any day, it means, as I have shown above, every day, and hence we have the Lord giving this remarkable instruction to man, namely, to work six days, and then in the next sentence forbidding labor on every day in seven. All can see that this is the legitimate conclusion to which we are driven when we take the position that the fourth commandment means any seventh part of our time. Another objector tells us that our interpretation of the commandment is all right, that it should be taken literally just as it reads, but that we overlook the fact that Christ changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day, and that if we fail to keep the latter, we deny Christ. We ask the objector, and we ask you, reader, as well, Is there any Scriptural proof that either Christ or the apostles ever made such a change? The only honest answer that can be given is that there is not a single text in all the word of God to prove that Christ, the apostles, or the early church ever changed the Sabbath, ever thought of doing so, or ever desired it to be done. Nowhere in the inspired volume is any sacred title applied to the first day. Christ never observed it, neither did he ever tell any one else to keep it. What does the objector say? Reader, what do you say? This same objector, after finding no proof for his supposed change of the Sabbath, tells me that the world is round and that it is impossible to keep the seventh day. Why did he not think of that when he was enforcing upon me the observance of the first day, and charging me with denying Christ if I did not keep it? Is the seventh day so radically different from the first that its observance on a round world is impossible, while the first day can be kept there as well as not? Is not this position rather a miserable make-shift and quibble to avoid the force of a plain precept of Jehovah, which says: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work”? A clergyman of considerable note, not long since, after instructing his audience that the world was too round to admit of observing the seventh day, told them that time had been lost so that it was impossible to tell which the seventh day was. Then as if to put the matter beyond all dispute, he drew a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. He described pathetically “the dead Christ” there on that “old Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day,” and then told of the “living Saviour” who came forth on “Sunday, the glorious first day, the day of all days.” Let us place these arguments side by side. - The world is round, and we cannot keep the seventh day.
- Time has been lost and we cannot tell which the seventh day is.
- Sunday is the first day. On it Christ rose from the dead; and if we would honor him, we must keep it sacredly.
- This first day came the next day after the “old Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day.”
A strange thing is this Sunday! There is no such thing as “the seventh day;” the commandment simply means any seventh day; time has been lost, and the seventh day cannot be found, and the world is round and you could not keep it if you were to find it; but none of these things militate one whit against the first day!! Strange, indeed, is Sunday! The seventh is the only day that God ever commanded to be observed as a weekly Sabbath. It was kept by patriarchs, prophets, Christ, and the apostles. A commandment concerning it was placed among the everlasting ten. It was enjoined in the teaching of our Saviour; and yet this first day, with no command for its observance, no hint that Christ or the apostles ever kept it or that they required or desired us to keep it, steps forward with all the authority of a God-given institution, and boldly asks us to recognize its claims. This whole matter of objections to Sabbath observance, in the minds of those who have given the question anything of a fair and careful examination, when simmered down amounts to this: It is inconvenient and unpopular to keep the seventh day. Then why should not those who think they cannot afford to obey the commandment just as it reads, unite on these objections, abandon the weak and puerile arguments they have been using against the Sabbath, and present one united front to Sabbatarians on this question? Inconvenient and unpopular! All other objections against the Sabbath can be answered, but these we cannot answer, only as each answers them for himself. These objections are true; all others are false. It is often inconvenient to keep the seventh day—to be out of joint with the world two days in the week—this is what makes it one of the closest tests of our loyalty to Him who bade us: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work.” Ex. 20:8, 9. And it has always been unpopular, so far as the world goes, to be in the minority; but while we are free to confess that no one can remove these objections for another, we wish to ask you, kind reader, what excuse do they contain for our violation of that law of which the Saviour says: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law”? Matt. 5:18. No, it is not always convenient to keep the Sabbath. Neither does the commandment say: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy if it be convenient.” It was not a matter of convenience for the three worthies to face the fiery furnace and the wrath of earth's then mightiest king; and yet they did it, and by sending the “form of the fourth” into that furnace to protect them from the destructive elements, God approved of the course they pursued. It was not convenient for Peter, Paul, James, John, and other of the disciples to meet persecution, to have their character maligned, their names cast out as evil; to be whipped, stoned, imprisoned, and put to death; and yet they suffered all this for the truth's sake, and rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.” It wasn't convenience that led our Saviour to give up all the glory of Heaven, and become “sin for us.” He was the “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He came not to do his own will, but the will of Him that sent him. Of him it is said, “even Christ pleased not himself.” Oh, let us become partakers of his Spirit; and when an unpopular truth presents to us a cross, let us take one look at the royal Man of Calvary in his life of humiliation, and remember that—
“There is suffering ere the glory,
There’s a cross before the crown.”