The Fourth Commandment and the Definite Seventh Day
By R. F. Cottrell
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT: DOES IT REQUIRE THE OBSERVANCE OF THE DEFINITE SEVENTH DAY OF THE WEEK?
The most subtle manner of evading the force of the fourth commandment, resorted to at the present day, is to claim that a particular day of the week is not set apart by this commandment; that it only inculcates one day of rest after six days' labor; and hence, that no definite day is required, but merely a proportionate time, for the observance of the Sabbath. We say, that this is a resort of the present day, because that in the early centuries of the Sabbath discussion in the Christian church, this argument was never used. The claim of the early advocates of the first day was, not that that day was the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, but that it had greater claims to our veneration than the Sabbath. They took not the ground that any one day of rest, after six of labor, would answer both the letter and spirit of the commandment; but they taught, as Calvin expresses it, that the old Fathers (or some other authority) put in the place of the Sabbath the day we now call Lord's day. And the Roman church to-day bases the claim not on the ductility of the commandment, but on the power of the church. "The church," say they, "by virtue of the power she has received from Christ, abolished the Jewish Sabbath, and substituted Sunday in its stead." (F. X. Weninger, D. D., 1862.) When this church arose to power, those that kept the Jewish Sabbath were denounced as Judaizers; and the term Sabbath, was never applied to Sunday during the first five hundred years of the Christian era. It remained for the moderns of the gospel age, those living this side of the Reformation, to discover that the fourth commandment was indefinite as to the particular day, only requiring a proportionate time, i. e., one day in seven, for its observance. We throw out this negative assertion to elicit the proof, if there is any, that the idea was ever broached before the Reformation. We believe the invention, with all its benefits, may be justly claimed by modern Christians, and that the apostles and early church can hold no claim to its discovery. The civil laws which God gave the Jews as a nation, required that those who labored on the Sabbath should be put to death. Had the Jewish Sabbath-breaker understood this quirk, he might have escaped the penalty, provided he could make it appear that he had rested on one of the six days next preceding; for this, in modern phrase, would be keeping “both the letter and spirit of the command.” It is generally admitted, that the arbitrary division of time into weeks of seven days had its origin in the fact, that at creation, God wrought six days and rested on the seventh. It is also a truth, that the week of the Old Testament corresponds precisely with that of the New; for “the first day of the week” mentioned in the latter, immediately followed “the Sabbath day according to the commandment” of the former. Mark xvi, 1; Luke xxiii, 56, and xxiv, 1. This, opponents admit. Therefore, if there has been any change from the regular succession of the week since the creation, it must have been made between the creation and the giving of the law at Sinai. It is now claimed that such a change was made—that the week, as given to the Jews, did not correspond with the week from the beginning. Thus the opposers of the only weekly Sabbath of the Bible, the seventh day of both dispensations, having utterly failed, in the discussion of these last few centuries, to prove one change of the Sabbath, have recently undertaken the double task of proving two! To favor a first-day Sabbath, it is pretended that man's first Sabbath was the first day of his existence; that is, the day on which the Creator rested, at the end of the creation week. This is false, as shown by either one of two revealed facts. 1. The Sabbath of that week was not man's first day, but his second; for he was created upon the sixth day. This is near enough the truth, however, for errorists to build a theory upon; near enough to constitute the fulcrum of the lever by which to overthrow the law of God. 2. The Sabbath institution was not completed on the day that God rested. He spent seven whole days in giving an example, and his rest upon the seventh day made it his rest—or Sabbath day; but man had no right to the Sabbath, it was not given to him, until it was sanctified, set apart, for his observance. The blessing and sanctification of the day were subsequent to the Creator's rest. “And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Hence the institution was not completed “for man,” till the Creator's Rest-day was in the past. The first week, that of the creation, had expired, the example of laboring six days and resting the seventh was completed, only at the close of the seventh day; consequently the act of sanctifying the day for man's observance and use, could not have taken place earlier than the first day of the second week. Here, therefore, on the first day after the Creator's example was complete, is the very time for God to reveal to man what he had done, and say to him, Follow my example. The sanctification of the day was doubtless the revelation to man of the fact, that he had reserved the day to his especial honor; that it was his holy day. He blessed the day, and sanctified it, after his rest upon it was completed; therefore, the blessing and sanctification have reference to the day in its weekly return from that time onward. From this point of time, namely, the first day of the second week, the earliest time that the completed rest and the sanctification of the day could be revealed to man, he had just six days to labor in the beautiful garden in which he was placed to dress and to keep it, ere the seventh day of the second week, the first Sabbath he was required to keep. The seven days of all succeeding weeks have ever since returned in their regular order. As we are now prepared for it, before examining the fourth commandment, we will try the proportionate time theory, and see if in reality it has any advantage for our friends over that of a definite day. From the first week of time, there has been a regular succession of days, and consequently of weeks of seven days each. Therefore, when God at the beginning set man upon the right track, commanding him to keep the Sabbath19every seventh day, he could not change the regular order of the week, and yet maintain the proportion of one day in every seven for the Sabbath; and consequently must keep the same seventh day in its weekly return to the end of time. This would be almost, if not quite, equal to confining the Sabbath to a definite day. Now, whenever the Sabbath is changed to another day, this seventh-part-of-time arrangement—this one day of rest after six of labor—is broken. If Israel, at the exode, removed the Sabbath to what before was the sixth day of the week, their Sabbath that week would come after only five days of labor; and if in the apostles' days, the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week, then they had seven days of labor before the one of rest, unless, indeed, they kept Sabbath two successive days, and this would equally break up the order, destroy the proportion, and would not answer the requirement of one day of rest after six of labor. But little interruptions like these are of no account with those who think the law of the Most High is so elastic, so much like a piece of rubber, that you may stretch it to almost any extent without breaking it. What is one day's variation from the law of God, as they expound it by the one-day-in-seven theory? But if the apostles could break in upon the established order, changing the Sabbath to the “eighth day,” by the same principle and precedent the people may now change it from Sunday to Wednesday, and so make one week consist of ten days, having one day of rest after nine of labor! Would this fulfill exactly the seventh-part-of-time theory? If not, then the least departure from the original seventh day is a breach of the law of God, according to the chosen theory of our opponents. Whenever the day was changed, this theory, as well as the law of God, was violated. God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, that is, set it apart, or appropriated it, to the special worship and service of God; or he did not. The record says he did; our theorists deny, and say he did not. You misjudge, say our friends; the meaning of the record is, that He blessed and sanctified any seventh day after six days' of labor. Then he left it to men to set apart any particular day they choose. All days are alike blessed, or alike unblessed, according to the use we choose to make of them. There may be, then, in one community, seven blessed and sanctified Sabbaths of the Lord in a single week. This would be blessed and sanctified confusion. But, as “God is not the author of confusion,” such a state of things could not come, but by the violation of his law. Do you say, that it is not for men, but for God only, to change the day? This brings us back to the old question: Has he done it? There is no record of it. We proceed to examine briefly the fourth commandment, and see whether God has, to avoid this confusion, appointed the day. And since it is admitted by all that the word Sabbath means rest, we will substitute rest for Sabbath in what we have to say, that the reader may better take the sense of the command. 1. The first word of the command is remember. Memory always looks back to the past. Something had been done in the past, of which the institution commanded is a memorial. 2. Remember what? The rest day. A rest day must be a day devoted to rest by some one. 3. Whose rest day is it? The seventh day is the rest of the Lord thy God. It is the Lord's rest day, and not some day on which we may choose to rest, that we are commanded to remember and keep holy. 4. What seventh day must we rest upon and keep holy to the Lord? The day, in its weekly return, on which he rested when he made the world. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.” We are to rest on the seventh day as it recurs once a week, because God rested on it in the first week. 5. Why did God hallow, sanctify, separate, or appoint this seventh day? Because that in it he had rested. Wherefore [for this reason] the Lord blessed the rest day, and hallowed it. See Gen. ii, 3. Thus we are pointed back to the creation for the origin of the week and rest day. Did God bless an institution that may be observed on any day? No; he blessed and sanctified the seventh day, the very day of the week, on which he rested. Did he rest on one day in seven, and no day in particular? Then he blessed each day of the seven alike, and sanctified—no, he did not set apart, devote, nor appoint any day, but we are left to choose for ourselves. Suppose we were commanded in the New Testament to observe weekly the day of Christ's resurrection, and the command informed us that he rose on the first day, and that for this reason the first day was sanctified for our observance. Could we change the resurrection day to another day, a day on which the resurrection did not occur? Could we obey the command by observing another day, calling a day on which he did not arise, his resurrection day? So no one can remove the Father's rest day to a day on which he did not rest. A command to keep any day you choose is no law; for you may choose to keep no day at all. Men may trifle with the law of the Most High, as they dare not trifle with the laws of the State, but they will find that God has a law, and that in that law he has reserved the day of his rest from secular employments, and appointed it to his own special honor and service. But how can we tell which is the seventh day in regular succession from the creation? If you cannot discern this, by the use of the light which God has given, you certainly are not to blame for not keeping it. If he has not pointed out and preserved the day, by his word and providence, so that we can find it if we will, the fault of its non-observance is not with us. But how can we ascertain the day? 1. God, in his providence, has preserved the numbering of the days of the week, from the time of Christ to the present, so that Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, are agreed in their number. 2. The New Testament instructs us that the first day of the week then immediately followed the Sabbath of the commandment; so that the week of the New Testament and that of the Old correspond precisely. Jews and Christians are agreed in numbering the week; the Jews still hold to the Sabbath of the commandment, while Christians hold to a change of the day. 3. The Sabbath according to the commandment, as we have seen, was that day of the week on which God rested from the work of creation. He knew the day in its regular succession from the beginning, and if it was not known to Israel, and he did not make it known when he gave his law, we are not to blame—the fault is not ours. But God told the people plainly, by Moses, which day was the Sabbath, and confirmed it by miracles in the giving of the manna. Ex. xvi. After this God commanded the Jews to put the man to death who should work on the rest day. If they, poor men, did not know which was the rest day, who is to blame? Not I, truly. Candid reader, you can see how the impious theories of man would cast the blame of his disobedience upon the Almighty. Such poor evasions of the fourth commandment were not thought of in the Jewish dispensation, nor in the first centuries of the Christian; and they will not be accepted at the bar to which we are all hastening. For five hundred years and more after Christ, the first day of the week was never called the Sabbath by any writer whatever. Then, if you would obey the commandment of God, do not insult him by pretending that he has not revealed the day of the Sabbath—the day on which he rested in the first week. Keep holy the day the Jews were required to keep on pain of death; the day that, called by the prophet Isaiah, “my holy day;” and you will do what you can to obey this commandment. That day is no other than the seventh day of the week, the day now called Saturday. Is it a narrow conception to commit the Sabbath to a particular day? The commandment of God is just so narrow. Indeed, the way to life is much more narrow than men generally imagine. The broad way is not the way to life. Let us choose the narrow way, and live.—R. F. Cottrell in Sabbath Recorder.