Explaining Away the Word of the Lord by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 13, 1916

Explaining Away the Word of the Lord

By F. M. W.

It is interesting to study the mental gymnastics and theological gyrations by which men seek to controvert the plain statements of Holy Scripture. By strange and subtle reasoning they seek to explain away the requirements of the Lord, and make it appear that the Author of the divine Book was incompetent correctly to represent his views to the creatures of his hand. Particularly is the logic which seeks to evade the claims of the Sabbath commandment of the decalogue marvelous and past understanding. These arguments devour either themselves or their fellows. We are told with all gravity that it is impossible to observe a definite seventh day on a round world; that time has been lost and we do not know which is the seventh day; that the commandment does not require a definite seventh day anyway; that the fourth commandment was abrogated at the cross, and phoenix-like, resurrected with the Lord, and incorporated into first-day observance; that as redemption is greater than creation, redemption should be commemorated by a rest day, etc.

It must be confessed, however, that in the Sabbath controversy which has raged for years, these arguments for the most part belong to a past period. Many intelligent Bible students, although Sunday keepers and representing various denominations, frankly admit that so far as the Scriptural proof is concerned the weight of evidence rests entirely on the side of the seventh-day Sabbath, and that there is no authority whatever in the Bible for the observance of the first day. It is the more surprising, therefore, to find so reputable a journal as the Watchman-Examiner, “a national Baptist paper” published in New York, reiterating some of these old-time arguments in support of first-day observance

and against the observance of the seventh day.

It seems that some of the readers of that paper in the Southwest have been disturbed by claims made by Seventh-day Adventists that the fourth commandment requires the observance of the seventh day of the week as holy time. In his issue of Feb. 10, 1916, the editor points out the error of this claim, and declares that “the whole essence of the controversy can be summed up in the following points:—”

“1. It is impossible to prove that the Sabbath as observed by the Israelites of Moses’ time was a chronological continuance of the seventh day on which God rested from the work of creation. The count was probably lost many times, if, indeed, there was any attempt to preserve it, of which there is no evidence. The fact that the fourth commandment was given through Moses indicates that a continuous use of the seventh day as a day of rest and worship was unknown or had been neglected among the Israelites.

“2. The fourth commandment does not indicate any particular day of the week to be observed as a Sabbath or day of rest. It says, ‘Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath.’ Plainly any one who works six days and rests the seventh is keeping the fourth commandment, whether he rests on Sunday or any other day of the week.

“3. When the Lord was with them on earth, the disciples and the Lord himself observed the Jewish Sabbath. After the Lord’s resurrection the disciples at once began to observe the first day of the week as a holy day of worship. All the special meetings of the early Christians were on ‘the first day of the week.’ There is evidence that, for a time at least, the Christians who were Jews continued to observe the seventh day of the week, as they did other Jewish customs. But the Gentile Christians never observed the seventh day as a day of rest even, and after a time the Jewish Christians neglected it, and soon ceased to observe it in any way.

“4. For Christians the day of the Lord’s resurrection, the first day of the week, became the one day in seven on which they obeyed the fourth commandment and ceased from labor, and to the observances enjoined by the commandment given through Moses they added the worship, service, and inspiration appropriate to the memories of the rising from the dead of their Lord and Saviour. The whole so-called Christian world has by general agreement adopted this one day out of the seven days of the week as a day of rest.

“The claim that to obey the fourth commandment one must observe the seventh day of the week in a calendar established by a heathen emperor is pure assumption. It goes beyond the word of Scripture. It assumes a chronological succession that cannot be proved. It elevates a Jewish ritual observance above the devout celebration of the most important and central fact in the Christian religion,—the resurrection of our Lord. And, if the ideas of the Seventh-day Adventists could be universally adopted, it would obscure the glory of the living Lord, and turn Christianity back, as some destructive critics desire, into a mere development of Judaism.”

A brief review of the points cited above may be of interest. We refer to them in their order:—

1. The division of time into the week has been recognized since the earliest days of antiquity. Many testimonies might be adduced in support of this statement; we append several. William Smith says, in his Bible dictionary, published by Fleming H. Revell, page 745:—

“There can be no doubt about the great antiquity of measuring time by a period of seven days. Gen. 8: 10; 29: 27. The origin of this division of time is a matter which has given birth to much speculation. Its antiquity is so great, its observance so widespread, and it occupies so important a place in sacred things, that it must probably be thrown back as far as the creation of man. The week and the Sabbath are thus as old as man himself.”

To this we might add no less an authority than the Encyclopedia Britannica:—

“The week is a period of seven days, having no reference whatever to the celestial motions,—a circumstance to which it owes its unalterable uniformity. Although it did not enter into the calendar of the Greeks, and was not introduced at Rome till after the reign of Theodosius, it has been employed from time immemorial in almost all Eastern countries; and as it forms neither an aliquot part of the year nor of the lunar month, those who reject the Mosaic recital will be at a loss, as Delambre remarks, to assign to it an origin having much semblance of probability.”—Vol. IV, p. 988, art. “Calendar,” eleventh edition.

William B. Dana says:—

“Besides proving God to be the Almighty Creator, in and through them is established a wholly artificial division of time, called a week, closing with the contrivance of a weekly Sabbath—‘made for man’—on which ‘God rested from all his work,’ and which he ‘blessed and hallowed.’

“In the light of these suggestions the assumption, we think, is irresistible that the framework in which was presented the account of the creation was a special device ingeniously designed and skilfully worked out as a vehicle for the establishment and perpetuity of these two remarkable institutions—the week and the Sabbath. They stand together. Take away either, the other falls.—‘A Day for Rest and Worship,’ pp. 57, 58.

Finally we give the testimony of a man prominent in the church which the Watchman-Examiner represents. Francis Wayland, a Baptist writer and minister, says:—

“The division of time into seven days is, moreover, very common among all ancient nations. This seems to indicate that they all received this institution from the same source, although the religious observance of it had been gradually neglected. From these facts I think we may conclude that the Sabbath was originally given to the whole hu-man

race, and that it was observed by the Hebrews previously to the giving of the law; and that, in early ages, this observance was probably universal.”—“Elements of Moral Science,” Gould & Lincoln, Boston, 1873, p. 91.

But suppose we admit for argument’s sake that the seventh day was lost in the patriarchal period. We have positive evidence that this knowledge was restored to Israel at Sinai. The threefold miracle lasting during the forty years’ wandering in the wilderness, when the Lord rained manna from heaven for the sustenance of Israel six days in the week, withholding it on the seventh day, definitely and specifically pointed out the seventh day. Food which they gathered on any other day than the sixth day would not keep overnight. On that day, however, a double portion of manna fell to make up for its cessation on the seventh day, and the extra portion which was gathered on the sixth day by a miracle of divine power was preserved fresh and sweet for use during the Sabbath. It made a difference to Israel as to which day of the week they observed as the Sabbath. Ex. 16: 14-36.

But the children of Israel were acquainted with the demands of the Lord, and had a definite knowledge of the seventh day previous to the falling of the manna; for when some of the children of Israel failed to make proper provision for Sabbath food on the sixth day, but went out to gather on the seventh day, the Lord said to Moses, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” Ex. 16: 28. This rebuke certainly would not have been given had the children of Israel not possessed a previous knowledge of the Sabbath of the Lord.

And admitting further that a knowledge of the true seventh day was lost during the Babylonian captivity, the example and teaching of the Lord during his earthly ministry were sufficient to set his disciples right regarding the particular day they should observe as the Sabbath, and his teaching and example were so potent regarding Sabbath observance that after his death, in place of continuing the work of embalming his body, the disciples returned to their homes, “and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23: 56. If they rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment, they could have rested on none other than the seventh day of the week.

In addition to these considerations the great historical fact remains that the Jewish people, segregated and divided, cast out and persecuted, driven from one country to another, are a unit to this very day, as they have been through all ages of the past, in their recognition of the one day of the week set apart by the God of their fathers for holy observation.

2. Does the fourth commandment indicate the particular day of the week to be observed as the Sabbath? The editor of the Watchman-Examiner says it does not, and strange as it may seem, he quotes the command, “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath,” to prove his claim. How dare one in the face of this plain statement of the Word of God, clearly and positively expressed, contend that God does not say what he surely does say? Read the fourth commandment, as contained in the following words, and consider whether or not God requires the observance of a particular day of the week as the Sabbath:—

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE LORD THY GOD; IN IT THOU SHALT NOT DO ANY WORK, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 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.” Ex. 20: 8-11.

3. The statements in paragraph number three of the above quotation would solve a question which is perplexing many minds, and would bring relief to many consciences which are now troubled over the requirements of the fourth commandment, if they were only true. But unfortunately the editor has stated that which he neither proves nor is able to prove.

It is true that the Lord, while on earth, observed the seventh day; but where is one single statement to show that “after the Lord’s resurrection the disciples at once began to observe the first day of the week,” and that “all the special meetings of the early Christians were on the first day of the week”? We challenge the proof. On the contrary, there is proof that the disciples after the resurrection continued to observe the seventh day. This day was the customary time of the apostle Paul for holding religious service, not only with Jewish but also with Gentile converts. See Acts 13: 42-44; 17: 1-13; 18: 4-11. Throughout the New Testament Scriptures no other day is spoken of as the Sabbath. The first day of the week is mentioned eight times, six in the Gospels, once in the Acts, and once in First Corinthians. In not one single instance is it called a sacred day, and no holy character is ascribed to it by any Bible writer. There is only one instance in the Sacred Record showing that a religious assembly was held on the first day of the week. That meeting began Saturday night, lasted throughout the night, and broke up Sunday morning, when Paul continued his journey to Rome, and the church people evidently returned

to their accustomed labor. See Acts 20: 1-4.

Later in the history of the church, when the purity of its teaching had become corrupted by heathen influences, the observance of the first day of the week was introduced. The historian says:—

“The festival Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance; and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect,—far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”—Neander’s Church History, Rose’s translation, p. 186, edition 1843.

Three leading motives apparently actuated the church Fathers in substituting the observance of the first day as a rest day, for that of the seventh day of the week. These motives were, (1) Opposition to Judaism, and therefore a desire to appear as widely separated as possible from Judaistic faith and practice; (2) a desire to conform as far as possible to the customs of many of their heathen neighbors, hoping thereby to advance the gospel; (3) the innate desire of mankind to commemorate the great events of history. It is only as the church departed from the simplicity of its primitive faith and practice, and lost a knowledge of the significance of the memorials which God had placed in the church, that these motives became dominant and controlling. The Lord had already provided definite memorials commemorating the events of the passion week. If these had been cherished with the true sense of their sacredness and significance, no demand would have arisen in the church for any further memorial. Says Morer, a Church of England clergyman:—

“It is not to be denied that we borrow the name of this day from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the old Egyptians worshiped the sun, and as a standing memorial of their veneration, dedicated this day to him. And we find, by the influence of their examples, other nations, and among them the Jews themselves, doing him homage; yet these abuses did not hinder the Fathers of the Christian church simply to repeal, or altogether lay by, the day or its name, but only to sanctify and improve both, as they did also the pagan temples polluted before with idolatrous services, and other instances wherein those good men were always tender to work any other change than what was evidently necessary, and in such things as were plainly inconsistent with the Christian religion; so that Sunday being the day on which the Gentiles solemnly adored that planet, and called it Sunday, partly from its influence on that day especially, and partly in respect to its divine body (as they conceived it), the Christians thought fit to keep the same day and the same name of it, that they

might not appear causelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the conversion of the Gentiles, and bring a greater prejudice than might be otherwise taken against the gospel.”—“Dialogues on the Lord’s Day,” pp. 22, 23.

4. Because the first day of the week has come to be generally regarded by the great professed Christian church as the Sabbath of the Lord, in no sense constitutes it the Sabbath. The general agreement of the Christian church in every age could not make it the Sabbath of the Lord. It is absolutely impossible for the Christian church individually or collectively to keep the first day of the week holy, for the simple and obvious reason that divine power has never made it holy. Only one day of the week has been made holy by the divine Word, and sanctified and set apart to the sacred use of the human family. That is the seventh day. See Gen. 2: 1-3.

Seventh-day Adventists do not claim that to obey the fourth commandment one must observe the calendar established by a heathen emperor. The weekly period of time existed centuries before the establishment of the Julian calendar, and was recognized by many nations. We must dissent from the charge that the teachings of Seventh-day Adventists “obscure the glory of the living Lord.” Our Saviour Jesus Christ was the Creator of this world in the beginning. Col. 1: 13-17; John 1: 1-3. He gave the Sabbath as a memorial of his great creative act. Gen. 2: 1-3. When man sold himself into sin, the Creator came to this world and gave his life for the redemption of the human family. The Sabbath memorial of his creation in the beginning is also the sign of the re-creation which he works in the regeneration of his children, a sign of their sanctification. Ex. 31: 13-18.

So far as the particular redemptive acts of our Lord’s ministry are concerned, he has given us memorials in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, instituted in memory of the broken body and of the spilled blood. See 1 Cor. 11: 23-26. Baptism by immersion serves as a memorial of the death and burial of the Lord Jesus, and of his resurrection from the dead. See Rom. 6: 1-5. We commemorate the scenes of the passion week in every baptismal occasion, in every gathering around the Lord’s table at communion service. And we marvel that the editor of a Baptist paper, who professedly recognizes in the baptismal service this commemoration of the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection, should so far forget its significance as to seek to substitute for it the observance of a day.

No, the plain statements of the Word of God cannot be set aside. They stand as an open rebuke to the great Christian world today as, wilfully or ignorantly, it turns its back on the Sabbath of the Lord

from week to week. We may seek by sophistical reasoning in this life to explain away the commands of the Lord, but in the great day of reckoning we must stand face to face with his requirements. It is well for us to determine our attitude toward this relationship, not from the standpoint of present convenience, but from the standpoint of God’s final judgment. “He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord?” F. M. W.