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The Lord's Day

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 24, 1910

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 87, No. 8.

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The Lord's Day

By F. M. W.

THE apostle John declares that he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and that he was given a vision of celestial glory. To what day does he refer? Some there are who teach that this was Sunday, the first day of the week, but it is safe to say that there is no Scriptural authority for such teaching.
To one who will take the Scriptures of truth as his guide, it is clearly evident to what day the apostle refers in this scripture. We need only to read the great law of Jehovah as contained in the ten commandments. There it is plainly stated that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” and that the Lord, because he rested on this day himself in the beginning, blessed it, and made it holy, and constituted it man's rest day.
He refers again to this day through the prophet Isaiah, when, in pronouncing a blessing upon those who observe a true fast, he says: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day . . .” The Lord himself, when he was on this earth, plainly distinguished between the days of the week, and he signalized the seventh day of the week—the Sabbath, which God had made in the beginning and given to man—as the particular day of which he was the Lord. He says: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of man is lord also of the Sabbath.”
Tracing the history of the days through the Holy Scriptures, we find that the seventh day of the week is the only day which has been especially honored by the designation, the Lord's day. We must, therefore, conclude that the day on which the apostle John was in the Spirit was the seventh day of the week instead of the first day; and truly what more appropriate time could have been chosen than God's holy Sabbath for him to begin to reveal to John the mysteries contained in the book of Revelation?
On lonely Patmos, shut out from all the world, in the quiet hours of the Sabbath day, God came near to his lonely, trusting servant, and gave him such revelations of his glory, and such communion with his Spirit, as the human heart is unable to fathom. A measure of this Sabbath blessing given to John is in store for every one who will still give to God his own in Sabbath service. “Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the Son of man that layeth hold of it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing evil.”
To one who seeks this blessing the Lord says: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” F. M. W.