Testimonies Regarding the Sabbath by C. E. Holmes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 10, 1914

Testimonies Regarding the Sabbath

By C. E. Holmes

C. E. HOLMES

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS are called a peculiar people. This is largely due, no doubt, to the fact that they keep the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment, while the large majority of the remaining Christians observe the first day of the week.

While we thus differ in the matter of the Sabbath day, it is a matter of great importance and interest to know that the observers of the first day frankly confess their lack of Scriptural proof for Sunday observance.

Why Sunday instead of Saturday is set apart as holy time is a question continually arising in the minds of many persons. The following question and answer was published in a Baptist paper:—

“Will you please give me a few thoughts upon the Sabbath question as Adventists stand for it?”

“This is too indefinite, and would cover the whole Sabbath discussion, for which there is not room here. We are not sufficiently familiar with all the Adventists stand for, in that connection, to reply, except at a venture, and that would not be prudent. We believe the Seventh-day Adventists hold that the Sabbath of the Mosaic covenant is still in force, and obligatory on all men; and that it should be observed on the seventh and not on the first day of the week; and that such only is ‘the Sabbath of the Lord our God.’ All that can here be said is this: The Scriptures furnish no evidence that the day of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first was ever changed by divine authority. Changed it has been, but not by divine authority, so far as any evidence has yet appeared. To pursue the subject further now would open too wide a field of discussion.”—Western Recorder, Dec. 25, 1913.

This is a very candid and honest statement of our position. The many readers of that paper must feel embarrassed to know that they have no more grounds for their Sunday rest than mere tradition. Two weeks later the editor wrote a similar article. One of his readers seems to have become stirred, and writes:—

“He [the editor] makes some statements on the ‘first day Sabbath’ that have a strange ring. He says the Sabbath was certainly changed in the days of the apostles from the seventh to the first day of the week, yet in the same connection he admits that there is no specific mention of such a change in the New Testament. The question would arise, If the Bible does not tell of the change, how are we to know it? The Bible settles all questions with Baptists. Then again, as Christ is our only ‘lawgiver,’ what right had any one to change it after his ascension?”—Id., March 13, 1914.

In the Word and Way (April 17, 1913) a contributor, in referring to a writer in that paper, says:—

“I should like to ask him where the command or moral law is given for the observance of the first day of the week. We have the command for the seventh day Sabbath. Why not observe it? In Rev. 1: 10 we find where John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day. When is the Lord’s day (Ex. 20: 10)?”

“Christ said that he came to do his Father’s will, and he was obedient unto death (Phil. 2: 7, 8). Christ kept his Father’s commandments (John 15: 10), and he told us to walk as he walked (1 John 2: 6).”

“Jesus said: ‘Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.’ Matt. 5: 19.”

“The psalmist says that the commandments are sure and unchangeable, and stand fast forever. It seems as if one command has been broken or changed. We are saved by grace, but God forbids us to make his law void (Rom. 3: 31).”

In his book “Idea of the Church,” John A. Kern, professor of practical theology in Vanderbilt University, says:—

“In the case of the observance of the Lord’s Day as a substitute for the ancient Sabbath, there is no direct testimony to its institution, either in the Scriptures or in the earliest Christian literature.”—Page 54.

Another writer testifies:—

“After a most careful and laborious research, it is asserted with confidence that there is not one writer of the first or second century who suggests that Christians of their time regarded the Lord’s Day as a substitute for the Sabbath. . . .”

“Those who maintain the theory that the obligation of the Sabbath was transferred to the first day of the week cannot tell us by whose authority or at what time or in what manner the transfer was made.

“Besides, is it credible that if a command to change the day of the Sabbath had been given by either Christ or his apostles, we should not find some reference to it in the pages of the earliest Christian writers? We do not find in their writings the faintest allusion to such a command having been given.”—“The First Century of Christianity,” pages 324, 327, by Homersham Cox.

Before the last great test can come, the people are to thoroughly understand the Sabbath question. They will know that in respecting the first day of the week they

are obeying the dictates of the Church of Rome. God is author of only the seventh-day Sabbath. All discussions will help to educate the people for this time.