The Indefinite Sabbath and the Definite Sunday
By L. A. S.
THE progress of the final gospel message in missionary lands is causing a stir among those who have planted in those lands the standard of popular Christianity. The seventh-day Sabbath is obtaining a foothold there, and this disturbs the work of those who have established the first day as the day of weekly rest. In a recent issue of the New York Observer, Seventh-day Adventists are mentioned by name, and charged with proselyting among the Christian converts in Spanish-speaking countries. “The Methodists and Presbyterians,” says the Observer, “have already lost to the Seventh-day Adventists work that has cost them years of effort and thousands of dollars of missionary money.” These “Saturday-Sunday proselyters,” it says, “have no moral right, much less moral duty, to go upon mission ground, and there divide with their peculiar preachment the little flocks gathered by other workers.” This view is based upon the idea, which the Observer asserts in the same connection, that whether the seventh or the first day of the week is observed as the Sabbath is not a matter of any importance. It says:— Of late the advocates of a seventh-day Sunday have been making trouble for the missionaries in Spanish-speaking countries by trying to reconvert the converts already made to the idea that it makes a difference whether Sunday or Saturday be observed as a rest day, thus exactly imitating the tactics of the Judaizers of Paul’s time, who, secure in their own dogmatic interpretations of the precise meaning of Scripture, sought to bind men to the letter of the law instead of informing them with the spirit of the gospel. Broadly, it may be said at the outset that a controversy between Saturday and Sunday is altogether alien from the spirit of the gospel of Jesus. If a man conscientiously observes either day to the Lord, doubtless the Lord accepts the worship. We have no sympathy with strenuous attempts controversially to fasten either day, as a mere day, upon the church.
But the Observer believes in Sunday, so it immediately adds:— But we believe it to be of vast importance that a weekly Sabbath should be observed by all Christians, and observed properly, and commend the work of the Sabbath Alliance and of the World’s Sunday Rest Congress, which labor to that end. As a matter of convenience,5if for no other reason, it is better for the Christian world to unite upon the observance of some one day, and except for a few irreconcilable dissentists, it has decided upon Sunday, and now seeks to secure the enactment of laws which will properly safeguard that day.
This is a peculiar view, warranted only by logic that is pressed into service in an emergency. We are told that so far as what God has said about the Sabbath is concerned, it makes no difference whether an individual observes the seventh day of the week or the first; but further, that it is “of vast importance that a weekly Sabbath should be observed by all Christians;” that the work of the Sabbath Alliance and World’s Sunday Rest Congress to that end is “commendable,” and that “as a matter of convenience, if for no other reason, it is better for the Christian world to unite upon the observance of some one day,” etc. Did the Creator know, when he instituted the Sabbath, that for convenience, if for no other reason, it would be better to have a particular day designated as the Sabbath, and not leave each person to select his own day of rest? or has it been left for man to discover a point which the Creator overlooked? And if the Creator did know that it would be best to designate a particular day, did he have enough regard for the convenience of the human race to establish the Sabbath on that basis? We unhesitatingly take the ground that the Omniscient knew all about the matter at the start,—that he knew every need of man and just how to adapt the Sabbath to man’s requirements, and did so adapt it when he instituted it at creation. “The Sabbath was made for man,” and when it was so made by the Creator, so vital a point as the need of a definite Sabbath day was not overlooked. God worked six days and rested the seventh day, then blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. This instituted the weekly division of time, and designated a particular day—the last one of the week—as the Sabbath. But to evade the claims of the seventh-day Sabbath, men virtually charge God with having less wisdom than themselves. God, they say, is not particular about the day; but they themselves are very particular and very strenuous about the day. It must be Sunday and no other; and to secure this definite day they have enacted Sunday laws, and insist that these laws be enforced upon the people. When the propriety of these laws is called in question, they are ready with any amount of argument to show that a definite day, which they call the Christian sabbath, must be observed, and enforced by law if necessary; that the Christian religion depends upon it; and that if this particular, definite day is not so observed, “Christianity will be lost, and the nation will go down in ruin.” And almost in the same breath they will argue that God instituted a hit-or-miss sort of Sabbath, and is not particular whether an individual observes one day or the other, so that he observes some one day in seven. Such logic, we repeat, is called up to do service in an emergency, but there is no valid way of evading the claims of the creation Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. Sabbath observance, just as God has commanded and specified it, is a matter of vital importance to all persons; and this is the justification of Seventh-day Adventists in persuading people everywhere to remove their feet from the seventh-day Sabbath, and to honor the day instituted by the Creator.