SABBATH TIME by John Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 13, 1869

SABBATH TIME.

By John Harvey Waggoner

The old objection (and one of the flimsiest of all objections) against keeping the seventh-day Sabbath, that the world is round, and the day does not commence in all places at once, has been so often noticed, and its absurdity so fully shown, that it would seem that any person of ordinary intelligence would be ashamed to offer it. But we find that opposition to the truth of God is never weary of any subterfuge.

A certain individual in Iowa has mounted this hobby, and seems to think a great reform may be effected by all commencing to keep the Sabbath at the same time; or, in other words, in our commencing to keep the seventh day on the sixth day! The following letter from him has been placed in our hands:

“BRO. BLANCHARD: Will you please answer a few questions? 1. Did not God rest on, and set apart, the seventh day, or last twenty-four hours of the week? 2. Does not God require all men to rest on the twenty-four hours that he sanctified? 3. When it is sunset in Asia, is it not sunrise here in America? 4. Do not we, S. D. Adventists, commence to rest twelve hours later, and continue to rest twelve hours longer than our brethren do in Asia?” S. O. WINSLOW. Boone Co., Iowa.

REPLY. 1. God did certainly rest the last day of the week. 2. He does require all men to rest on the last day of the week. 3. It is sunrise here when it is sunset in some part of Asia. 4. We do commence to keep the Sabbath twelve hours later than they in Asia, opposite to us; but we do not “continue to rest twelve hours longer;” as we keep only the seventh day, which is no longer to us than to those on the opposite side of the earth.

Before taking up the point of objection, we present another letter of his, as follows:

“ELDER JAMES WHITE, Kind Sir: By the perusal of a tract called ‘Scripture References,’ I understand you, Seventh-day Adventists, to believe that the Bible teaches that the seventh day (or seventh twenty-four hours of the week as they come down to us from the creation of the world,) commences at sunset the world over. Would you be so kind as to inform me, how it can be that this definite day, or twenty-four-hour time, can commence at sunset the world over; for the sun rises here in America when it sets in Europe, does it not?”

It rises here when it sets somewhere, if not in Europe. But where is the difficulty? The question recognizes the fact that the day commences at sunset, and sunset does not occur at all places at the same time; therefore, the day does not commence in all places at the same time. The Bible plainly teaches that the day commences with the evening; and as all days commence at that time, what is said in Lev. xxiii, 32, will

apply to all Sabbaths, or to the Sabbath at all times, and in all places.

But the writer of the foregoing letters urges that we should begin to keep the seventh day at the same time they would begin to keep the same day in Asia! Let us see how this will work.

Two men, one in Asia, and one in America, wish to keep the Sabbath according to the Bible. They read in the Bible that (1) the seventh day is the Sabbath. Ex. xx, 9. (2) The evening is the first part of the day. Gen. i. (3) That the evening begins at the setting of the sun, Josh. viii, 29; x, 26, 27; Mark i, 32. And (4, therefore) The Sabbath must be observed from even to even, that is, from sunset to sunset. Lev. xxiii, 32. Now if they both keep the Sabbath according to the Bible, they will both keep it according to these particulars. As time rolls on, the sun rises the sixth time in the week on the American—it is sixth-day morning with him. Thinking of the circumstances of his Asiatic brother, he soliloquizes thus:

“The sun is now setting in Asia, and my brother there now commences to keep the Sabbath. It is said that God is a God of order, and uniformity is desirable, so I must now begin to keep the Sabbath, in order to keep it with my brother. But the Bible is my rule, and I will see if I can begin the Sabbath here at the same time my brother in Asia begins it, and obey the rule. The rule says I must keep the seventh day; if I begin now I shall keep part of the sixth day and part of the seventh day. The rule says I must keep it from evening to evening; if I begin now I shall keep it from morning to morning. I must not violate the rule; therefore I must not yet commence my rest of the Sabbath. Neither will it do for my brother to wait till the sun sets here, in order to begin with me, for the sun has already set there, and the seventh day has there commenced. The rule requires him to begin now. And if he waits to begin with me, the Sabbath will be half gone there when he begins; so he will then keep half of the seventh day and half of the first day. Therefore, if we begin at the same time, we must violate the rule, or else get the sun to set in Asia and America at the same time! But the former, we must not do, and the latter, we cannot do, therefore, he must begin now, and I must wait till the sun sets here, and the Sabbath begins with me.”

Who can say he has not arrived at a safe conclusion? it is, in fact, the only conclusion at which he could possibly arrive without doing violence to the sacred rule.

Suppose a law should be passed at Washington that a certain document should be placed on record in Washington, and in the capital of every state of the Union, on the Fourth of July, exactly at noon. Would the Secretary in Sacramento fulfill the law, if he made the record at the same time that it was made in Washington? Surely not; for the law requires it to be made at noon, in every place, but noon does not come at Sacramento some three or four hours before the sun reaches the meridian. There is not a person in the land so wild as to suppose, nor so reckless as to urge, that the record must be made at the same time, absolutely, in each State of the Union. But “noon” is no more definite than “evening” or “the setting of the sun;” what will apply to one, in this respect, will apply to the other. Why, then, will people argue so absurdly in respect to the commencement of the Sabbath?

We know of no reason why this objection should be a source of trouble to any; and we advise Mr. Winslow to dismount from this hobby lest it prove a stalking-horse to carry him to destruction.

We are not surprised that some people offer this objection against the Sabbath; but again at others we are much surprised. A letter recently received from Maine, says: “We have had Eld. Preble here, and he preached to us at the school-house. . . . He said there was a variation of twelve hours between some places, so that it would be sunset in some places earlier than in others; that it was always after six days of labor, and not the seventh day corresponding with the one God kept, for it was impossible to keep the same hours all over the world that God kept, for the day did not begin at the same hour all over the world.”

Well, if it be so, (and it surely is,) that the day does not begin at the same hour all over the world, to keep the same day. A school-boy may see that, if he will. But is it not surprising that he who is so strenuous for the observance of Sunday as a Christian duty, binding on all, should argue that a day cannot be kept by all?

Eld. Preble lays claim to much knowledge on this subject, both in a biblical and historical view, and has written a large work to prove that first-day, the identical day of the resurrection, is the Sabbath, and ought to be kept. Yet the seventh-day keepers are a poor, deluded people in his estimation, because, as he urges, the seventh day cannot be kept all round the world! And not only this, but he argues that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day; if that were truth, it would surely be true that the seventh day was the day to be kept before such change was made. Did the same impossibility then exist in regard to keeping the seventh day? And has the order of nature so changed, that the seventh day, which could formerly be kept in different latitudes, cannot now? Or is this another reason for the change of the Sabbath, changing from the seventh day which cannot be kept all round the world, to the first day, which can be kept everywhere? Perhaps so; at least it is as good a reason as we ever heard urged for the change.

Charity for the author of “My first-day Sabbath” will not allow us to conjecture his motive for using such an argument against the seventh day. But we say we are surprised; that's all. J. H. WAGGONER.