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A Testing Truth

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Aug 31, 1905

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 82, No. 35.

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A Testing Truth

By Editor

FROM the rise of the third angel's message until the present time the light upon the Sabbath question has been a testing truth, and it will be so until the work is finished, and the people of God are gathered home. It is interesting to note how the call to Sabbath reform and the observance of the seventh day of the week was kept before the people in the publications issued at the very beginning of this advent movement. In the first numbers of The Present Truth, published in the summer of 1849, there were articles in every issue bearing upon the Sabbath truth. The consideration of this question was continued in nearly every one of the eleven numbers which were issued under this name.
In November, 1850, was begun the publication of the Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, which, with a slight change in the name, has been issued regularly until the present time. The first article in the first number is on the Sabbath truth, and the larger portion of it was reprinted in the REVIEW of August 17.
In the second number we find an article by J. N. Andrews, affectionately remembered by many believers of the present day for his life of self-sacrifice in behalf of this message, in which he presents some “Thoughts on the Sabbath.” More than half a century has passed since these “thoughts” were put into print, but no one has been able to break the force of the simple truths of the scriptures so plainly stated, and many thousands have been led to Sabbath observance by these very considerations.
We believe that our readers will be profited by perusing this article by Brother Andrews, and we therefore reprint it without any change or abridgment:—
Those who observe the Sabbath of the Bible may plead, as their foundation, a divine institution. “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.” In this consists the Sabbatic institution itself. As God has never taken this blessing from the seventh day, the original institution still exists. As God has never sanctified another day of the week, much less enjoined another day as a weekly Sabbath, it is the only Sabbath institution.
Jehovah was the first who rested on the seventh day. His example was followed by the Son of God, and by the church universal, so far as the record of inspiration extends. How absurd to believe that the great Creator observed a “carnal ordinance”!
As the seventh day was here sanctified by God, its observance is henceforth a moral duty. But like the other precepts of the decalogue, it was not at first expressly enjoined in the written word.
When God enjoined the Sabbath on Israel (Exodus 16), he pointed out the true seventh day, by a threefold weekly miracle, which continued for the space of forty years. Thenceforward the history of the Sabbath is given in the records of inspiration, so that a knowledge of the true seventh day has been preserved to the church.
When the law was given by the voice of the Almighty, we find the observance of the Sabbath enforced by the fourth commandment. The reason for its observance, as well as the date of its sanctification, is also clearly given.
The Lord made heaven and earth in six days and rested the seventh, “wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” The Sabbath, then, is a standing memorial of God's act of creation. By its observance men would have kept in memory the knowledge of the true God.
We have now considered three important points in the history of the Sabbath: first, its institution (Genesis 2); second, the fact that the true seventh day was pointed out to Israel (Exodus 16; Nehemiah 9); and, third, the grand law of the Sabbath. Exodus 20.
As we proceed in this examination, we notice three different sabbaths: first, the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day (see Exodus 20); second, the sabbaths of the Jews, the first and eighth day of their feasts, etc. (Leviticus 23); and, third, the sabbath of the land, the seventh year. Leviticus 25.
As the Sabbath of the Lord had a real existence before “the law of commandments contained in ordinances” was appended, therefore, when that law wasnailed to the cross, the Sabbath remained in full force. Not so with the sabbaths of the Jews and the sabbath of the land. That law gave them their only force; and when that ceased, they were abolished.
The most precious blessings are promised to those who keep God's Sabbath. See Isaiah 56 and 58. And it is worthy of note that this prophecy pertains to a period when God's salvation is near to be revealed. The blessing is promised to “the son of the stranger” (the Gentile) as well as to Israel.
Mark the distinction between God's Sabbath and those of the Jews, as presented in the prophets. Of the perpetuity of the first, let us judge after reading Isaiah 66, where we are informed of its existence in the new earth. But God assures us by the prophet that the latter shall “cease.” See Hosea 2:11. The fulfilment of this prophecy may be read in Colossians 2. Please compare Isa. 56:4; Ex. 20:10, with Hosea 2 and Leviticus 23, and note the language, “my sabbaths” and “her sabbaths.”
Though the Scriptures nowhere teach or authorize a change of the Sabbath, yet they contain an accurate prophecy of the power that should do this thing. Let the reader compare Daniel 7 with the history of the papal church, and note its acts of changing “times and laws.”
We have seen the grand law of the Sabbath embodied in the decalogue. We come now to the New Testament. That our Lord did not destroy that law, or lessen our obligation to obey it, he clearly teaches in Matt. 5:17-19. And we may with the utmost safety affirm “that the apostles did not disturb what their Lord left untouched.” See Rom 3:31; James 2. We say, therefore, that the New Testament teaches the perpetuity of God's law, and for that reason does not re-enact it. Brevity forbids a more lengthy notice of this important point.
Our Lord came to “magnify the law, and make it honorable.” He kept his Father's commandments; but he brushed aside the traditions of men by which they were made void. “The Sabbath,” says he, “was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath;” by which he rebuked the pharisaic observance of the Sabbath on the one hand, and the views of those on the other who teach that the Lord's Sabbath is one of the things against us which were taken out of the way at Christ's death. Colossians 2.
The fact that those who had been with Jesus during his ministry “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment,” after his crucifixion, and resumed labor on the first day of the week, shows clearly that they knew nothing of its change from the seventh to the first day.
The fact that God has never sanctified the first day of the week, shows plainly that it is not sacred time—is not a divinely instituted Sabbath.
The fact that he has never required us to rest on that day shows that its observance in the place of the Sabbath, is a clear instance of making void the commandments of God to keep the traditions of men.
That sanctified time exists in the gospel dispensation, or in other words, that there is a day which belongs to God, is clear from Rev. 1:10. That “the Lord's day” is the Sabbath day, is plain from Isa. 58:13.
As the Sabbath was made for man, we find it under all dispensations, and in every part of the Bible. Those, therefore, who profane the Sabbath, sin against God and wound their own souls.