p. 1072 | The Apostolic Delegate on Sunday by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 6, 1913

The Apostolic Delegate on Sunday

By C. M. S.

(Concluded)

AFTER declaring that the apostle changed the day for rest and worship from the seventh to the first day, for which he submitted no jot nor tittle of proof; after declaring that the Scripture called the first day of the week the Lord’s day, and submitting for proof a text which says nothing in reference thereto; after declaring that the day was changed because the apostles received their commission and the authority to forgive sins on that day, and submitting no proof at all; after giving, as another reason for the change, the statement that the Holy Ghost came down upon the apostles on Sunday, a statement which is impossible of proof,—the papal delegate declares:—

Since the law of God in this matter is, therefore, so clear, and since the determination of the time for the fulfilment of this duty has been reasonably changed from the day of Saturday to that of Sunday, it is very much to be desired that all who claim to be Christians should faithfully discharge their duty in this regard. So much, at least, is their duty of conscience.

How such “proof” as the papal delegate has presented can be regarded as making clear the abrogation of the seventh-day Sabbath and the establishment of the Sunday in its place, is beyond our comprehension. Not a statement which he has made is backed by proof or susceptible of proof except the statement that God himself appointed the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath to commemorate the work of creation. That is proved by the words of the Almighty himself. That fact is engraved in the law of God itself. “Since the law of God in this matter is, therefore, so clear,” says the delegate. It is clear. God himself has never altered it. But it says nothing about Sunday. It is another day entirely which this law that “is so clear” declares is the Sabbath. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” What does that make “clear”? It makes clear, according to the delegate, that Sunday is now the day for rest and worship, and that the keeping of that day in preference to the day Jehovah appointed, is our “duty of conscience.” We are not able to see the point. The command from the Almighty to do one thing does not make clear to us that we shall refrain from doing the thing commanded and do something else in its place.

“Since the determination of the time for the fulfilment of this duty [Sabbath-keeping] has been reasonably changed from the day of Saturday to that of Sunday,” says the apostolic delegate, “it is very much to be desired that all who claim to be Christians [an invitation to all Protestants to join with Catholics in Sunday observance] should faithfully discharge their duty in this regard.” But who gave the reason? and who authorized the change? Clearly such reasons were not given by any of the apostles; for in none of their writings can anything of the kind be found; and the substitution of Sunday for the seventh-day Sabbath was not made until long after they were all in their graves. It was one of the fruits of the working of that “mystery of iniquity” which the apostle Paul says was beginning to operate in his day.

The emperor Constantine—professed Christian, but proved pagan by his unchristian acts—gave concrete direction to that working of the “mystery of iniquity” in this particular when in 321 A. D. he enacted a law compelling the observance of Sunday by certain specified classes of the people; and that “mystery of iniquity” itself capped the climax in that direction when, in 464 A. D., it made obligatory upon all the substitution of the first day for the seventh as a sabbath. But the apex of its high-handed work was reached when it laid violent hands upon the law of God itself, remodeling the entire law so that no condemnation might rest upon that church because of its worship of saints and images and pictures. By that alteration the second command was dropped out, the fourth became the third; and the tenth was divided to keep the number whole.

Teaching that remodeled decalogue, that church in its catechism commands: “Say the third commandment.” Then follows this: “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.” She asks again: “What is commanded by the third commandment?” Answer: “To sanctify the Sunday.” The above is from Butler’s Catechism, page 34. From the “Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine,” page 50, we glean the following:—

Question.— Which is the Sabbath day? Answer.— Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Ques.— Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Ans.— We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A. D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

Ques.— Why did the Catholic Church substitute Sunday for Saturday? Ans.— The church substituted Sunday for Saturday, because Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday, and the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles on a Sunday.

Ques.— By what authority did the church substitute Sunday for Saturday? Ans.— The church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her.

Ques.— What does the third commandment command? Ans.— The third commandment commands us to sanctify Sunday as the Lord’s day.

The Council of Laodicea was held in the year 464 instead of 336; but the incorrectness of the date given is not so important as the church’s admission of the fact that she changed the day “from Saturday to Sunday,” and not in the days of the apostles, but at the Council of Laodicea, which was held more than four and a half centuries after Christ. This catechism does not agree very well with the apostolic delegate’s declaration that “the apostles” changed the day. The “apostles” who thus changed the reading of the law of God and are teaching that perversion of his law will have much to answer for at the bar of God.

A church sinking into apostasy under the mighty workings of the mystery of iniquity is alone responsible for that perversion of Jehovah’s “ten words.” But every Christian to whom the knowledge of that fact becomes known will be held personally responsible by the Almighty himself if he chooses to follow Rome’s leadership in doing despite to the eternal law of God. The Creator himself established the Sabbatic institution, established it as he wanted it to be, commanded it to be observed, and gave his reason for the requirement in the law itself. God’s reason can never be changed; it is based on the fact of creation. When we consider this fact, what a tissue of cobwebs are the reasons assigned by the apostolic delegate for the change from the seventh to the first day! It is naught but a fabric of myth which the breath of an infant may blow into shreds. Such reasons as he gives cannot bind the conscience of any true Christian. Nevertheless, he holds that—

society should be greatly concerned in enacting laws for the observance of Sunday, and most careful in seeing that they are put into practise.

Must the law of God, which is “so clear” in this matter, depend upon human laws to make it of binding force upon the consciences of men? Is man stronger than God? Has God become discouraged and put man in his place to require obedience to divine mandates? The law of God stands today as he wrote it. He has never altered it. It is as binding today upon Christians as it was upon Moses and his followers when it was given on Sinai by the voice of God and written on stone by the finger of God. He who attempts to alter it jeopardizes his own eternal interests, and he who keeps man’s perversion of it in preference to the law itself will have no reason to give which God will accept when he stands before his Maker at the bar of eternity. Says Jehovah: “I will not . . . alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” Ps. 89:34. Says Jesus: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matt. 5:17, 18.

Let it not be overlooked that the apostolic delegate, who is the mouthpiece of the Pope, is calling all Christendom to the making and enforcing of Sunday laws. It was only to be expected that the power which is responsible for the establishment of the substitute sabbath should consider it a matter of great moment that the institution be perpetuated. In that pronunciamento Rome is calling America to do the work which the prophet saw her doing (Rev. 13:11-18), enforcing an oppressive law to bind and force the consciences of men. Through utterances like this the National Reformers and the Federal Council of the Churches and the Lord’s Day Alliance may know that Rome is coming to their help with the power of her mighty organizations for the enactment and enforcement of oppressive Sunday laws; and they who have been looking for something of this kind as a fulfilment of the prophecy of God’s Word in the closing of the great controversy may know they have not been looking in vain. We are entering upon the closing days of the great struggle, and these happenings are to us assurances that the culmination of the Christian’s hope is drawing nigh. C. M. S.