p. 5 | The Sabbath and Israel by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1903

The Sabbath and Israel

By L. A. S.

A RECENT editorial in Our Hope, a religious weekly published at Mendota, Ill., undertakes to refute the doctrine that the Christian Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. The article is written in reply to a statement of the belief of Seventh-day Adventists, and is based largely upon the idea that the seventh-day Sabbath was not given to be observed by the Gentiles, since the Bible states that it was given to be a sign between God and the children of Israel. The editor says:—

The claim that the seventh-day Sabbath was given to man at creation, though assumed, is a mistake. It has never been proved, from Scripture, can not be proved from Scripture, and the Scriptures clearly show its mistaken character.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you; every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death. . . . Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for-ever.” Ex. 31: 12-17.

This statement is from God, and is authoritative. All other Scripture statements will harmonize with it if properly understood. There can be no mistake as to its meaning. God states that he gave the seventh-day Sabbath as a sign between himself and the children of Israel, forever. It is clearly impossible that it could be a sign between God and the Israelites if also given to all mankind. Therefore it was not given to all mankind, but to the children of Israel. This statement of Moses is confirmed by the prophet Ezekiel.

“I gave them [Israelites] my Sabbath, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. . . . Hallow my Sabbaths: and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” Eze. 20: 12, 20.

Nothing can be plainer than these plain statements of the Holy Spirit that the seventh day as a sacred and holy day was peculiar to the Israelites, restricted to them, and not given to any other people. No statement of the Scriptures, elsewhere, contradicts this.

We admit that the editor of Our Hope is right in claiming that the seventh-day Sabbath was and is “peculiar to the Israelites,” and that its observance was “restricted to them.” But this fact does not in the least affect the claim that the seventh-day Sabbath is the Christian Sabbath, and binding upon all mankind to-day. Hence all the proof cited by the editor of Our Hope counts for nothing against the seventh-day Sabbath. He simply proves a point that we admit, and which is in perfect harmony with the doctrine he is seeking to disprove.

When the Jews, standing around the cross of the crucified Christ, said, “He saved others; himself he can not save,” they stated the truth, which they thought entirely disproved the claim of Christ to be the Messiah. But in reality, seen from the right point of view, the truth stated by them was a demonstration that he was indeed the Messiah. So also does the fact that the seventh-day Sabbath was peculiar to the Israelites, and designed to be so, prove that it is the Christian Sabbath.

Who are Israelites? Consider the origin of the word “Israel:” “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” So said the angel to Jacob after the night of wrestling. Jacob had wrestled with God, and he obtained the victory, not by his own power, but by faith. Has such an experience nothing to do with Christianity?

“To Abraham and his seed were the promises made.” “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3: 16, 29. “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Verse 7. “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; . . . but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Rom. 2: 28, 29.

To the Gentile Christians at Rome Paul wrote: “What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for: but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.” “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, . . . boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.” Rom. 11: 7, 17, 18. The whole of this chapter sets forth the fact that the unbelieving Jews were cut off from the olive tree, the true Israel, because of their unbelief; that the Gentile Christians stood not by themselves, but

were grafted on to the olive tree through faith; and that the Jews might be received back if they would turn from their unbelief. The truth is made perfectly plain that a true Israelite is a Christian, and that there is no salvation outside of the true Israel, Abraham’s seed, the children of faith.

To prove, therefore, that the seventh-day Sabbath is an institution peculiar to the Israelites proves nothing against it from a Christian standpoint. The Israelites were separated from the nations to be God’s peculiar people. God’s people in the world have always been a peculiar people, and the case is not different to-day. 1 Peter 2: 9. The Sabbath was given to be a sign between God and his peculiar people. To say that the Sabbath was not intended for mankind because it was peculiar to the Israelites is like saying that faith is not intended for mankind in general because it is peculiar to the people of God. Faith separates God’s people from the world, and Sabbath keeping is the outward sign by which a people declare that their God is the true God, the creator; but Sabbath keeping, no less than faith, is for all people who will be saved. It is an expression of faith. That God did not give the Sabbath to another nation than the Israelites, when the Israelites alone believed in him, is not strange. It would have been strange indeed if he had commanded any people to keep the Sabbath without faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please him.” Without faith, all the commands God might have given would have been of no use whatever.

The fact, then, that the seventh-day Sabbath is an institution for Israel alone does not at all prove that all mankind ought not to keep the Sabbath. All men ought to become identified with Israel, and must be so identified if they are to be saved. Heaven is a place intended only for Israel; yet it is no less true that God would have all men to be saved. No one will obtain it, however, except through faith.

Another point which the editor of Our Hope attempts to make is thus stated:—

It is true that Moses states in Gen. 2: 3 that “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,” or set it apart for a holy use. But this does not tell us when God did this. There is not a hint in sacred narrative of any one keeping the seventh day, of all the ancient holy patriarchs before the flood or after it, until after the exodus of Israel from Egypt and shortly before the giving of the law from Sinai. We are therefore compelled to conclude that Gen. 2: 3 is an explanatory statement of Moses, alluding to the sanctifying of the seventh day to the Israelites, especially as it is entirely probable that Moses wrote the book of Genesis after the giving of the law from Sinai, and had in mind, when writing it, the fourth commandment, in which God himself says: “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

The reason of the sanctification of the seventh day, as here stated, is that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” Yet the editor of Our Hope would have us believe that the Sabbath was not sanctified until after the Israelites left Egypt. This is equivalent to saying that God sanctified the Sabbath because he led Israel out of Egypt; but God himself says he sanctified it because he rested upon and blessed the day. God sanctified the Sabbath day as soon as the reason for sanctifying it came into existence, which was when he had rested on the seventh day and blessed it. “The Sabbath was made for man.” It was good for those to whom it was given, and would have been equally good for all men, but only those who had faith in God could keep his commandments.

In conclusion, the editor of Our Hope says that while the heathen of this day “have intuitive knowledge of right and wrong, leading them to condemn murder, theft, adultery, and other sins condemned by the decalogue,” they have no intuitive knowledge of the sanctity of the seventh day.” It is therefore a reasonable conclusion, he says, “that all mankind, before the giving of the decalogue, were morally in the same condition as are the heathen nations to-day, who have not learned of the decalogue.”

This is to suppose a government of God continuing for many centuries without law. But how can there be government without law? Who ever heard of such a government? “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3: 4), and without law there could have been no sin; yet before the law was spoken on Sinai, it had become necessary to destroy the world by a flood on account of the sins of its inhabitants. Did God give the antediluvians no law, and then destroy them because they broke the law they had not heard?

Certainly the law was given to Abraham; for of him God said: “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Gen. 26: 5. To suppose that other righteous persons, from Adam down, did not have the statutes and laws of God as Abraham had them, is no less absurd than it is to suppose that God during that period of human history maintained a government on the earth without law.

When the Israelites came out of Egypt, where the ignorance that goes with slavery had long darkened their understanding, God made the Sabbath a test of their willingness to obey his laws. When some of the Israelites went out to gather manna on the Sabbath, God said to Moses: “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” Ex. 16: 28. By keeping the Sabbath, they acknowledged the claims of the true God. Heathen systems of religion, such as they had become accustomed to in Egypt, contained commandments against murder, theft, adultery, false witness, etc., and without the Sabbath there would have been no distinguishing sign to mark them as worshipers of the Creator. By keeping God’s Sabbath holy unto him, they acknowledged that all their time was rightfully his, he being their Creator, and the one from whom they drew life and all things. Thus they acknowledged the sovereignty of the true God; and this is the purpose the Sabbath has served through all time, from Adam’s day down to the present. So long as it has been necessary that man should acknowledge the sovereignty of their Creator, so long have men had the commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day.

The editor of Our Hope, like all others who oppose the claims of the seventh day, has too narrow a view of the subject. He sees a few truths, but there are other truths of such importance which he does not see that his impressions are quite misleading. The broad and clear view of God’s truth to-day is to be obtained in the light of the threefold gospel message of Rev. 14: 6-12. L. A. S.