A SEVENTH PART OF TIME by W. H. Littlejohn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1881

A SEVENTH PART OF TIME.

By W. H. Littlejohn

BY ELD. W. H. LITTLEJOHN.

SECONDLY, it is not in harmony with the reason of the law.

We apprehend that one of the chief difficulties in the way of arriving at the truth in the matter arises from a misconception of what the Lord really requires at our hands. Many seem to read the statute as though the keeping of a Sabbath is all that it requires. Acting upon this impression, it not unfrequently occurs that Sunday-keepers, when reminded that Saturday is the Sabbath, reply somewhat as follows: "We know that Saturday is your Sabbath, but Sunday is ours." The error here consists in the use, in such a connection, of the words your and our. For, mark, Jehovah does not say, "Remember a Sabbath, to keep it holy," neither does he direct you to abstain from labor upon your Sabbath. But the injunction is, to do no work on "the seventh day," which "is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Hence, all that is necessary to determine, so that we may know whether we are obeying God or not, is to decide the simple question whether the Sabbath we are celebrating is that of the Lord. If the mere fact of resting upon a day makes it such, then all which is necessary, in order to impart this distinction to every day of the week (and, as a consequence, to each one in the whole year), is that seven individuals, through accident, caprice, or interest, should devote to this purpose seven days following each other in consecutive order, a condition of things of a nature to render the absurdity of such an opinion palpable to all.

How, then, shall we ascertain when we have found the Sabbath of the Lord? We answer, Its identification is easy. It is not necessary to leave the sacred tablets themselves, in order to locate it with absolute certainty.

Underlying every wise law is found a good and sufficient reason. The one which is assigned by its Author for the institution of the Sabbath, is found in the following words: "For 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." Here we are informed that the seventh day became the Sabbath of the Lord on account of three distinct acts. 1. He rested; 2. He blessed it; 3. He hallowed it. Now, therefore, as the seventh day and the Sabbath are herein declared to be one and the same, before any other day can be said to be entitled to this distinction, its friends must be able to show that these three things have, at some time, or in some sense, been true of it. Let us, therefore, examine the claims of the first six from this stand-point, taking them in the order in which they occur.

We will first investigate those of Sunday. Did God ever rest upon it? There is not a scintilla of evidence in his holy word to that effect. Did he ever bless it? If so, he has failed to mention the fact. Has he ever hallowed it? The most patient student of sacred history has failed to find a single trace of this fact.

Thus we find that it comes short in every particular necessary to constitute it the Sabbath of the Lord. The same line of argument which has proved the claims of Sunday to be unsound, invalidates equally those of the other five days, as neither of the three conditions required is met by them. They are all of them working days, and, consequently, it could never, with propriety, be said of them that God blessed and hallowed them after he had rested upon them.

How different the case, when we come to the seventh and last. Standing in the field without a rival, its competitors having been dismissed on the ground that sacred history has shown that the facts peculiar to the Sabbath are not true of them, we are furnished with a strong presumptive argument at the outset, that it is entitled to the distinction which the others have failed to obtain. Nor shall we be disappointed upon further investigation. The same man who penned the sixteenth chapter of the book of Exodus, in which the seventh day is distinguished in so marked a manner from all others, and the same one to whom was committed the awful responsibility of receiving from the hand of Jehovah, and conveying to the people, the tablets of the law, has spoken emphatically upon this point. In the brief but lucid account of creation, which he has left us in the book of Genesis, we are furnished with a narration of what transpired during the first week of time.

Making mention of the events which characterized each day in order, and referring to each by its proper numeral, he speaks of the last as follows: Gen. 2:2, 3: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 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."

In these short verses is found the historic counterpart of the statement made in the commandment, that in the beginning God rested upon, blessed, and hallowed (or, that which is the same, sanctified), one of the days of the week. The scripture in question once more announces that it was the seventh, and the context shows that it was the last, thereby establishing, beyond dispute, that the seventh, or last, day of the week is the "Sabbath of the Lord."