p. 3 | Sabbath” and “Sunday by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Aug 24, 1905

“Sabbath” and “Sunday”

By Editor

It requires considerable intellectual keenness and some facility in juggling with language to admit that “there is no command to keep Sunday holy,” and yet to try to prove that the first day of the week is the Sabbath, and that the fourth commandment applies with full force to the keeping of that day. To such extremities are those reduced who feel the need of the fourth commandment in order to enforce the observance of a sabbath, and yet are unwilling to observe the Sabbath of the commandment.

A fresh illustration of this attempt to retain the commandment in full force, but to dispense with the day mentioned in the commandment, is found in a recent issue of the Christian Statesman. Under the title “The Name of the Rest Day” we find a letter to the editor of the Statesman, which is followed by “Editorial Remarks” upon the views advanced by the correspondent. From this letter we take the following paragraphs:—

In a recent issue of the Sunday School Times the statement is made by an eminent scholar and professor in a theological seminary that “the seventh day of the week is always meant when ‘Sabbath day’ occurs in the Bible. The fact that many apply it [Sabbath day] to Sunday sometimes creates confusion.”

The “confusion” arises not from calling “Sunday” the “Sabbath” day, but from calling the “Sabbath” “Sunday.” The “confusion” is most unfortunate and harmful, especially when it leads people to the notion that the Sabbath passed away with Bible times, and that we now have a substitute for it so different that to use the names interchangeably creates “confusion.”

To keep up or emphasize such distinction tends to, and in point of fact does, dissipate the force of the fourth commandment. There is no command to keep Sunday holy. As a most regrettable consequence the average Christian does not really believe that we now have, or are required to have, the Sabbath day of the Bible.

After confounding the weekly Sabbath with the ceremonial sabbaths, the correspondent further says:—

It is clear that while the “Sabbath day” of old Testament times commonly fell on the seventh day of the week, it is probable that it was movable. It was not requisite that six secular days should always intervene between Sabbaths. It would appear that when a fixed feast-day sabbath fell upon any intervening day of the cycle of seven, a new starting-point for the weekly cycle was recognized. It is most clear from the above and other passages that either there were two kinds of sabbath days, the one the seventh-day Sabbaths, and the other special ones, or else the Sabbath was movable to accommodate the feast calendar. We believe that, in the total absence of any necessity for two kinds and in the absence of any Scriptural reference to two kinds, there was but one, and that the fourth commandment specified the manner of its observance.

After another effort to show that there was only one kind of sabbaths the writer continues:—

We have no specific Bible record of when, how, or why the seventh-day Sabbath was discarded for the first-day sabbath, but what more natural than for the early Christians to begin reckoning their week from what was at once a Jewish sabbath and also the day on which Christ arose from the dead, or the day of Pentecost, on which the full harvest of the Holy Spirit was poured out? The Christian world has simply perpetuated what the apostles did in recognizing the first day of the week as the Christian sabbath. The fourth commandment applied to it under the Old Testament dispensation and follows it into the New. There is, therefore, no difference between our “Sunday” and “sabbath,” except that the former name originates from the sun-worship of the heathen, while the latter name was given to it of God. There is no necessity for “confusion” here if Christians felt as they should toward the blessed rest day, and were willing to show their respect for it by always giving to it that most beautiful and significant name its Author gave it—the Sabbath.

In the editorial remarks following this letter we find the following paragraph:—

The argument presented by our correspondent

concerning the manner in which time was counted among the Hebrews, and by which it is shown that the Sabbath could not fall regularly on the seventh day of the week, is new to many people. It merits careful study. The writer has examined the evidence with considerable care, and is convinced that our correspondent is substantially correct.

It seems remarkable that men who are capable of understanding language would make such assertions as these in the face of the plain statements of the fourth commandment and the unimpeachable facts of Biblical history, to say nothing of the records of secular history. The commandment says that ‘the seventh day is the Sabbath,’ and commands that no work shall be done on that day, giving as a reason for this statement and command concerning that day that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, . . . and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Thus the Sabbath is based upon what the Lord himself did. And what the Lord did in making the Sabbath he has never done with reference to any other day than the seventh. And it is impossible to apply the foundation of the seventh-day Sabbath to a movable sabbath. After six days of creative work he rested on the seventh day. He worked on definite days, and he rested on a definite day. He then blessed the definite day upon which he had rested. These acts established the weekly Sabbath, and the division of time into weeks. This division of time has been uniform and universal among the nations of the world. We will quote some good testimony upon this point:—

The origin of this division of time is a matter which has given birth to much speculation. Its antiquity is so great, its observance so wide-spread, and it occupies so important a place in sacred things, that it has been very generally thrown back as far as the creation of man, who on this supposition was told from the very first to divide his time on the model of the Creator’s order of working and resting. The week and the Sabbath are, if this be so, as old as man himself.—Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Article “Week.”

Thus from the very beginning of the history of this world the week has been recognized by all civilized nations as one of the fundamental divisions of time, and the week of the Israelites has always coincided with the week of other nations. This could not possibly be true if, as this writer claims, ‘when a fixed feast-day sabbath fell upon any intervening day of the cycle of seven, a new starting-point for the weekly cycle was recognized.’

Furthermore, according to the universal use of the word, crystallized into a dictionary definition, the word ‘week’ signifies ‘a period of seven days.’ Any given length of time is thus indicated by a certain number of weeks. But this would be an uncertain and unreliable method of reckoning time, if a new starting-point was likely to be taken for the week ‘when a fixed feast-day sabbath fell upon any intervening day of the cycle of seven.’ This shifting week would make confusion worse confounded. But history declares that there has been no such confusion among the nations in their reckoning of time, and it is plain enough that there never could have been ‘a new starting-point for the weekly cycle.’

Again, the clearest distinction is made in the Scriptures between the weekly Sabbath and other appointed sabbaths. In the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus mention is made of the different feasts and sabbaths commanded by the Lord. We quote a portion of this instruction:—

In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. . . . Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: . . . it shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls. . . . These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day: beside the sabbaths of the Lord, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your free-will offerings, which ye give unto the Lord.

The obvious meaning of this language is that in addition to the usual gifts and free-will offerings there were certain other offerings prescribed, and that in addition to the usual weekly Sabbaths, designated as “the Sabbaths of the Lord,” in harmony with the language of the fourth commandment, there were other special sabbaths prescribed. As to the necessity of these additional sabbaths we must leave their Author to be the best judge, but the correspondent of the Statesman denies both their necessity and their existence in these words: ‘We believe that, in the total absence of any necessity for two kinds and in the absence of any Scriptural reference to two kinds, there was but one.’ We leave our readers to decide whether such a conclusion is justifiable in the light of the instruction quoted above.

Failing to recognize the two kinds of sabbaths, this correspondent says that ‘while the ‘Sabbath day’ of Old Testament times commonly fell on the seventh day of the week, it is probable that it was movable.’ When we remember that ‘among the Jews the days of the week had no names, they were simply counted,’ and that therefore the expression ‘the seventh day’ was just as definite a designation of a particular day as is our present word “Saturday,” we are prepared to appreciate the absurdity of the claim that the Sabbath was a movable day in the face of the statement in the commandment that ‘the seventh day is the Sabbath.’

Suppose the correspondent of the Statesman could find in the New Testament this statement: ‘Sunday is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,’ does any one think that he would now be found arguing for a movable Sabbath? But when the commandment said, ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath,’ it established an immovable Sabbath just as positively as if it had used our present name for the day instead of the number of the day. A movable Sabbath! Men commanded to observe an indefinite day! Not even necessary that ‘six secular days should always intervene between Sabbaths’! What a hodge-podge this would make of a plain commandment! This is the foolishness of human wisdom well displayed in the effort to make void the commandment of God.

It is perfectly true, as this correspondent says, that ‘we have no specific Bible record of when, how, or why the seventh-day Sabbath was discarded for the first-day sabbath,’ and the reason for this omission is found in the fact that this change was not made by divine sanction. We do have, however, a plain intimation in the prophecies that an attempt would be made to change the law of God, and we find that just such an attempt has been made by the papacy, that power of which it was said that ‘he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High; and he shall think to change the times and the law.’ Any unprejudiced reading of history, either sacred or secular, will establish clearly the fact that the apostles did not recognize ‘the first day of the week as the Christian sabbath.’ On the contrary, the record plainly shows that they observed the seventh-day Sabbath according to the commandment, and that they raised up churches who kept the Sabbath of the commandment in harmony with the example and teaching of the apostles. Those who assert to the contrary can not produce the evidence to substantiate their assertions. They assume their conclusion as true, and then bring forward a mere semblance of proof which has been discredited over and over again. The most charitable view of their unwarranted course in this matter is that zeal in what they think to be a good cause has prevented them from conducting an impartial investigation, and from giving the proper interpretation to the statements of the Scripture.

The conclusion reached by the correspondent of the Statesman at the close

of his series of unfounded assertions is worthy of note. He says:—

There is, therefore, no difference between our “Sunday” and “Sabbath,” except that the former name originates from the sun-worship of the heathen, while the latter name was given it of God.

How is it possible for any one who claims to deal in facts to assert that God ever gave the name “Sabbath” to the first day of the week? From Sinai he proclaimed, “The seventh day is the Sabbath,” and he has never revoked or changed this proclamation. Sunday is “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times,” and was adopted by an apostate church in those days when many pagan practises were introduced in order to make it easy to convert (?) the heathen to Christianity. It seems little less than blasphemy to declare that the fourth commandment applies to this day, and that God himself has given to it the name “Sabbath.” Sunday is a counterfeit sabbath, and is the sign of apostasy from God. Men have called this day “the Lord’s day” and “the Christian sabbath,” but God has never authorized any such use of these names. There is only one “blessed rest day,” and that is the day which God has blessed, the seventh day of the week.

It seems a hopeless and thankless task to follow the groundless claims and the baseless assertions of such a writer as this correspondent of the Statesman, and yet this is just the kind of instruction which the advocates of Sunday observance are seriously giving in their effort to counteract the effect of the message of Sabbath reform which is calling the people back to the true Sabbath of the Lord. Newly invented arguments are being put forward to break the force of the plain preaching of the truth, and now it is claimed that the fourth commandment applies with full force to Sunday, and that God has called that day the Sabbath. We can only hope that there are yet many who will not refuse a plain “Thus saith the Lord” in favor of human authority, and that the presumptuous claims of the Sunday advocates will turn honest souls to the observance of the true Sabbath.