The Apostolic Delegate on Sunday by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 30, 1913

The Apostolic Delegate on Sunday

By C. M. S.

(Continued)

ONE of the arguments used by the apostolic delegate, as quoted in last week's issue, to prove the binding obligation of Sunday is that “the first day of the week is called the ‘Lord's day’” in Rev. 1:10. If the sanctity of the first day of the week can be proved by Rev. 1:10, so can the sanctity of all the days of the week be proved by the same text. The text reads: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.” How can one read that text and then truthfully and conscientiously say the text calls the first day of the week the Lord's day? That such a claim can be put forth by any one is one of the unexplainable wonders of this most wonderful age. The first day of the week is not mentioned in the text. It is just as consistent to claim that this text teaches that Wednesday is the Lord's day as to claim that it calls the first day of the week the Lord's day. The making of such a claim proves how desperate is the case for Sunday sacredness.

In making such a statement concerning the text in question, the papal delegate has done what the Lord himself has warned all men not to do. We read:—

“I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book.” Rev. 22:18, 19.

Certainly he who declares that Rev. 1:10 teaches the first day of the week to be the Lord's day has added to the words of that book. From that text alone, it is impossible to tell on what day the apostle “was in the Spirit.” But there are two facts which ought to make it possible for every true-hearted Christian to know what day is meant: First, the Lord has set apart only one day as his day, and that is the seventh day of the week, the true Lord's day. He declares himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath day. Mark 2:27. The apostolic delegate will not claim that Sunday is the Sabbath. Therefore he cannot claim that Sunday is the day of which Christ declares he is Lord. The Lord's day is the Sabbath day, the only day he ever hallowed, set apart, and blessed, and is therefore the day upon which John declares he was in the Spirit.

Second, the first day of the week was not called the Lord's day in the age in which John the revelator lived and wrote out the wonderful prophecies of the Revelation, nor was it called such until long after this aged servant and companion of our Lord had been laid to rest. When the church became practically overwhelmed with a flood of half-converted, half-heathen members, the customs of a pagan world were grafted to the professed church of Jesus Christ; and finally a baptized paganism sat in the seat of power and dictated to all Christendom what it should do and believe and profess. Then there came into being that master counterfeit of the ages; the day that had been the high day of sun-worship was declared to be the Lord's day, and they who persisted in observing the day which was indeed the Lord's day were outlawed and anathematized.

Another of the apostolic delegate's reasons for the change from Sabbath to Sunday is, “Because it was on this day that the apostles received their commission, as apostles, from Jesus Christ, with the same power and authority which he, as man, has received from his Father.” If it were possible to prove that the great commission was given on the first day of the week, the delegate would be no nearer proving his point than before; for that has nothing to do with what day of the week is the Lord's day.

The apostles were sent out by the Saviour, says the delegate, even as the Saviour was sent out by the Father. But he was not sent out by the Father to pursue a course of his own, to carry out plans of his own, to make new laws and to change the ordinances of the eternal Father. “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me,” says Jesus. He even declares that he did not come speaking his own words, but the words of the Father. Again he declares, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” He even declares that till heaven and earth pass away no jot or tittle of the law shall fail.

In view of these facts and these declarations of the Son of God, what presumption it is for any one to declare that Jesus gave his apostles authority to change the law of God or to do what the Father had not given him authority to do, and what he so emphatically declares cannot be done! What a pitiable example is this of the attempt to bolster a lost cause, when the giving of the commission to the disciples to teach that which Jesus had commanded is taken as authority for changing the law of God! The apostles did not change the day.

The delegate further argues: “It was also on this same day of the week that the Holy Ghost came down upon the apostles, and that the faith and law of Christ was for the first time solemnly published to the world by them.”

This is an assertion which it is impossible to prove. The best authorities are divided. Some hold that it occurred on the Sabbath, counting fifty days from the Saviour's crucifixion. Barnes, in his comments on Acts 2:1, says:—

If the views of the Pharisees were followed, and the Lord Jesus had with them kept the Passover on Thursday, as many have supposed, then the day of Pentecost would have occurred on the Jewish Sabbath, that is, Saturday. (Kuinoel; Lightfoot.) It is impossible to determine the truth on this subject. Nor is it of much importance. The day of Pentecost was kept by the Jews also as a festival to commemorate the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai.

But the identity of the day on which Pentecost fell on that year has nothing to do with the question of whether Sunday is the day Christians should observe. There was nothing said or done upon that day by the apostles that gives even a hint of a change from the seventh to the first day of the week or of a disposition on the part of the apostles to change the law of the Most High.

Neither is it true that on this particular occasion the faith and law of Christ were first “solemnly published to the world by them.” They had been doing that work before, under the personal supervision of the Messiah, especially when he had sent them out two and two; but on this day the Holy Spirit's enduement had intensified their endeavors, and, working with them, had greatly multiplied the fruits of their efforts. They preached to a more cosmopolitan audience than at any other one time, and with more wonderful results. But this did not change the Sabbath command of the decalogue any more than it changed the command against theft or murder. Moreover, if they solemnly published the “law of Christ” on that day, as the delegate claims, they did not publish it as a broken law or as a remodeled one. The law of Christ is the law of God. “I and my Father are one.” C. M. S.

(To be concluded)