No Need of a Human Sabbath Law by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 13, 1910

No Need of a Human Sabbath Law

By C. M. S.

At a meeting of the National Reform Association, held Oct. 19, 1909, in Park Street Church, Boston, the question of whether we should have a national sabbath law was one of the chief topics of consideration. One of the principal speakers upon that topic was Rev. O. P. Gifford (Baptist), of Brookline, Mass., who made this point against the necessity for such a law:—

If these gentlemen present think that we ought to have a national sabbath law, I would advise that you all get out and evangelize the masses, and bring them where they will want to keep the sabbath, and then they will keep it, law or no law. I doubt if even then legislation would be advisable. We would not dare legislate on New Testament truths—we could not if we would. The Bible lays down no law concerning Lord's day observance. The only Sabbath law we have was given to the Jews.

There is much in little here. When a man's conscience is educated to the point where he sees his obligation to keep the Sabbath, there is no more need for a human law to make him keep it than there is for a human law to make the grass grow, the birds sing, the rivers run, or the sun rise and set. More than that, he will keep it even if the law is against his doing so and is enforced by the heaviest penalties. That fact is patent to all. It has been demonstrated again and again. Human laws against the performance of religious duties have had but two results. Of moral and religious weaklings such laws have made hypocrites; of men strong in moral and religious convictions such laws have made martyrs. There is no middle ground, no twilight zone, between these two results in which such a system might work for the common good of the masses. He who obeys a human religious law which is contrary to his religious convictions is not obeying God, but merely obeying the power which made that human law. He has not the courage of his convictions; he is a coward morally, and religiously he is a hypocrite. It need hardly be said that the world has a plethora of such already, and therefore is in no need of legislation to increase the supply.

Jehovah declared, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Whoever sets up a human law regarding religious things, and compels men to obey that in opposition to God's law, is setting up another god—a human one—and compelling religious weaklings to make idolaters of themselves. No one else will be affected by it; for no one else will obey it. The true Christian can not obey it; to do so, he would have to transfer his spiritual allegiance from his Lord to that human power or human being which made the law in question, and that he will not do. As the human ruler has no power to save the soul or grant eternal life, he has no right to step in between the soul and the only power that can save the soul, and can grant eternal life. The One who gave his life for the ransom of the soul has a right to demand the allegiance of that soul in spiritual matters—and allegiance can not be divided. Therefore, of all the unnecessary and incongruous legislation enacted by human lawgivers, that which attempts to enforce religious duties and practises is the most unnecessary and the most incongruous. More than that, it is an imputation that divine institutions rest upon a human basis, and must be supported by human law or fall to the ground. Such work, instead of building up the kingdom of God in the earth, blinds the eyes of men as to what the kingdom of God really is and the foundation upon which it stands.

Dr. Gifford spoke truly when he declared that “the Bible lays down no law concerning Lord's day observance;” for there is no command in the Bible for keeping the first day of the week as a Sabbath. Whatever authority there is for it is wholly outside of the Bible. This being true, the institution itself is outside the Bible. The Bible being the revelation of God's will and purpose concerning man, whatever is not authorized by the Bible is outside the will and purpose of God. The Sunday sabbath institution is therefore outside that will and that purpose; and when enforced by a human law in opposition to an institution which does have a divine command for its existence, we see at once that there is an open warfare between an institution of man and an institution of Jehovah. It seems peculiar, to say the least, that “eminent divines” do not see the logic of this.

To be sure, for centuries the religious world has been taught to believe that in some way, which neither the Bible nor history ever explained, the apostles, through authority from the Lord Jesus Christ, substituted the first-day sabbath for the seventh-day Sabbath, that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead might be fittingly commemorated; and no inconsiderable number through the passing centuries have appealed to the clergy to have the promptings of their conscience soothed into quietude over this lack of divine command for continually disregarding a divine institution and putting in its place one which has no seal of divinity upon it. It is one of the most perplexing questions with which the clergy have to deal. If they take the position that the Lord authorized the apostles to change the day in commemoration of their Lord's resurrection from the dead, they are at once confronted with three troublesome propositions:—

First, there is no record of such delegation of authority, but much Scripture proof that God's entire law is unchangeable, immutable.

Second, the apostles never taught any one that there was a change of the day, and they themselves taught the keeping of “the commandments”—and kept them. Paul's conduct in this regard (Acts 18: 1-11; 28: 17) and John's admonition to the early church (1 John 2: 3, 4) should be sufficient proof of this. If Paul had been keeping Sunday instead of the seventh day, the Jews could have successfully contradicted him to the face when he declared that he had done “nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers.” It was the most distinctive custom of the Jewish “fathers” to keep the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath of Jehovah. Paul was not out of harmony with them in that regard. He kept the day they kept. More than that, history shows that there was no change on the part of the general church body in the matter of Sabbath-keeping until long after the death of the apostles.

Whence came the change? The Catholic Church answers the question by declaring “the Christian sabbath” (Sunday) to be “the genuine offspring of the union of the Holy Spirit with the Catholic Church, his spouse.”—Catholic Mirror, Sept. 23, 1903. The writer of that article declares, in the same issue of that paper, that “the Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.” The leaders of that church distinctly repudiate the idea that the New Testament teaches the change of the day of the Sabbath, or that Christ or his apostles ever intimated that there was to be a change. The Catholic Church did it, and claims she had a right to do so.

Third, there was already established one sufficient ordinance to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead—the ordinance of baptism. Whoever follows his Lord in that ordinance declares, by that act, his faith in the resurrection of his Lord. Wherever that ordinance is performed, Christ's resurrection is commemorated, and men declare to the world their faith in its efficacy. Had the resurrection required another ordinance of commemoration, it would have been the province of the Lord himself to say what it should be; and it is not supposable that he would have been compelled to destroy his own divinely appointed memorial of creation in order to find a suitable memorial for the resurrection. Neither did he. Jehovah's memorial of creation, the Sabbath of the decalogue, has never been abrogated. It is binding upon Christians

to-day. Said the Methodist Episcopal bishops in their Pastoral of 1874: “The Sabbath instituted in the beginning and confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets, has never been abrogated; a part of the moral law, not a jot or tittle of its sanctity has been taken away.” Then it is surely incumbent upon all Christians everywhere to keep it; and it is impossible to do that by substituting a human sabbath institution for the one which was divinely ordained.

But there is one statement in the above excerpt which should not go unnoticed, and that is that “the only Sabbath law we have was given to the Jews,” the inference being that it is not therefore binding upon Christians. If that be true concerning the Sabbath command, it is equally true concerning every other command of the decalogue. They were all given to the Jews; but we are not to suppose, therefore, that they are not binding upon Christians. It will be freely admitted that a man can not be a Christian and worship other gods, take the name of God in vain, dishonor his parents, lie, steal, commit adultery, kill, and covet. But all these commands and prohibitions were given to the Jews, and the Sabbath command was written in the midst of them. They stand or fall together. Then, too, we have our Saviour's own declaration that “the Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2:27. That includes the human race, and not the Jew only.

Finding no command in the Word of God for the setting apart of Sunday as a sabbath, the church to-day is appealing to the state for a law enforcing the observance of that day. It is a most striking anomaly that the modern Protestant church, professing to represent her Lord and Master Jesus Christ, should attempt to enforce an institution designed to supplant an institution of which he himself declares that he is Lord. Said Jesus: “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Luke 6:5. Is it not a paradox that the professed representatives of Jesus should seek to abolish and supplant an institution of which Jesus is Lord? Yet wherever a national or State Sunday law is proposed that is what is involved in the proposition.

Verily, there is no need for a national sabbath law. The divine institution is able to stand upon its own law; and the human institution, being in opposition to the one which God himself established, is not deserving of the support either of Christians or of non-Christians. “Every plant, which my Heavenly Father hath not planted,” said Jesus, “shall be rooted up.” Matt. 15:13. The human sabbath is such a plant.

C. M. S.