Did you ever try to account for the existence of so many days of rest? The Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews are avowed observers of Sunday, Friday, and Saturday, respectively. In view of the observance of these several days as sabbaths, I have often pondered the question, Which day is the true Sabbath? Not all of them are false; and only one of them can be true.
In this portion of the world, Friday is out of the question as the true Sabbath. None here would consider it. Likewise, this is also true in large measure of Saturday. But a small percentage of the people keep the day. Seeing, then, it is Sunday that is kept by the majority, we might at first think it to be the true Sabbath. But majorities do not establish the true day of rest.
MAJORITIES DO NOT ESTABLISH TRUTH
Now this last statement, about majorities not establishing the true day of rest, was not made to disprove the divine origin of Sunday. It may be that Sunday is the true Sabbath. The statement was made, however, to take away the divineness of majorities, to expose the day to close scrutiny, and to take away the hesitation against questioning and inspection which majorities always tend to give their practices.
Why, if it is, is Sunday the true day of rest? Is it because the majority keep it? No. Why, then, is it so? Is it not so because God appointed it? Is it not so because the prophets declared it? Is it not so because Christ, whose memorial of creation it was, kept it and perpetuated it? Why should such an important matter be decided, declared, kept, and perpetuated by any of less import than these? For remember that the Sabbath, whichever day it is, is a sign between God and those who keep it. “Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations.” Exodus 31:13.
Upon consent that the true Sabbath should have the sanction of such as these three authorities above mentioned, let us apply these three fundamental requirements to Sunday. If Sunday is the true Sabbath, it will stand this investigation:
REQUIREMENT 1. If Sunday is the true Sabbath, is it not because God appointed it? Our answer is found in Genesis 2:2, 3: “On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” And in Exodus 20:8-11, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
In these two texts the seventh day is blessed, sanctified, rested upon, and hallowed by the Creator Himself as the Sabbath. But this in no way disproves Sunday as God’s Sabbath until it has been further proved that the seventh day of creation week has continued in unbroken cycles of seven until the present time.
If Sunday, in view of Genesis 2:2, 3 and Exodus 20:8-11, is the true Sabbath, then at some time since creation such a cycle has been broken to just that extent that the breaking makes the present first day of the week to coincide with creation week’s seventh day. Either this is so, or it was changed by its Author. We will discuss the possibility of the broken cycle first.
Concerning the broken cycle possibility, if it can be proved that there has come down to us since creation a perfect, unbroken cycle of seven-day weeks, then Sunday, as the Sabbath of God, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, is made void.
Let us divide the period of time from creation until now into two periods; namely, from Adam to Christ and from Christ until the present time. Concerning the first period, let us ask ourselves some questions.
IT ISN’T REASONABLE
Would God, jealous as He is, and declares Himself to be, “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God,” have allowed to occur such an accidental abrogation of His sign between Him and His people? Was it not to avoid this result that He brought those people “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”? Exodus 20:2. Again, would the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, have made of His reputation nothing, and taken over to Himself a servant’s form and kept a sabbath that was a remnant of broken cycles of seven? Would He not rather have taught them of their mistake, and preached a new and correct Sabbath?
Neither of these checks against error had to be employed. God gave no instruction about broken cycles, neither did Christ preach a new day or keep any other.
Before taking up the second period of time, from Christ until now, as further proofPage Nineof the statement, “Neither did Christ preach a new day or keep any other,” let us suppose that Christ did preach a new day and kept another day sometime before His ascension. If He did, there is, or ought to be, a record of it somewhere in the New Testament. This will deal with the possibility of a change, which was acknowledged at the beginning of the argument.
THE NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED
To save time in our search, let us go directly to the eight places where the first day of the week is mentioned in the New Testament. The first of these is Matthew 28:1: “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.” This text and the following ones, Mark 16:1, 2, 9, Luke 23:52-56; 24:1, John 20:1, show plainly that the seventh-day Sabbath according to the commandment was still unchanged at the time of Christ’s burial in the tomb.
Again, “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.” John 20:19. This time above all other times would have been the ideal time for Christ to change the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday, but He did not do it. Reading on either side of the text will show this.
Another mention is in Acts 20:7: “Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.” This is the only one of the eight texts that speaks of a religious meeting upon the first day of the week.
According to the Bible reckoning of time, the dark part of Sunday came on what is now called Saturday night, for as we learn from the record of creation, “the evening and the morning were the first day.” Genesis 1:5. At that time, the first day of the week began at sunset, at the close of the seventh-day Sabbath, and lasted until the following sunset. This meeting, according to our calendar, was a Saturday-night meeting, which lasted until midnight.
On the other hand, when this text, which speaks of breaking bread upon the first day of the week, is studied in connection with Acts 2:46, “They, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house,” it kills the hope that in this text is written a pronouncement of Sunday sacredness. What Sunday keepers claim for Sunday alone by this text, the same author, Luke, informs us was common to every day of the week.
The last mention of the first day is in 1 Corinthians 16:1, 2: “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.
Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.” This was a matter of expediency, and not of Sabbaths, for Paul stated his reason for their doing this: “That there be no gatherings when I come.”
Not any of these eight texts speaks of the first day as a sacred day, but only as an ordinary day. Thus it is evident, and consistent with God Himself, that no change of the Sabbath occurred from Adam to Christ. Christ Himself once said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Matthew 5:17.
WEEKLY CYCLE UNBROKEN
Now concerning the second period of time, that from Christ until now. Has the weekly cycle been broken since Christ? Not knowing of any loss or gain of time that would break this cycle, we must agree that if we can prove the contrary,—that not so much as a minute has been lost or gained since Christ,—then we may come to the conclusion that the weekly cycle as instituted in Eden has come down to us unchanged, and that the seventh day of our time coincides with the seventh day of that time.
To prove that no time has been lost or gained since Christ, and to warrant the conclusion given above, I quote the following from reports to the League of Nations Committee on Calendar Simplification. M. Anders Donner, formerly Professor of Astronomy at the University of Helsingfors, on page 51 of his report says: “The reform would break the division of the week, which has been followed for thousands of years, and therefore has been hallowed by immemorial use.”
M. Emile Picard, permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences (France), President of the Office of Longitudes, said in his report, page 51: “One essential point is that of the continuity of the week. The majority of the members of the Office of Longitudes considered that the reform should not be based on the breaking up of this continuity. They considered that it would be entirely undesirable to interrupt a continuity which has existed for so many centuries.”
Who should know better than these men whether or not time has been lost or gained? Their predictions of coming comets, of changes in the heavens, are accurate to the second. Eclipses come just as foretold by them. Now, how could they, with a past about the times and dates of which they were not sure, or which were false, predict to a fraction of a second future things? Does not this accuracy on their part cause us to respect the truth of their testimonies?
So, then, the proof is complete, being established by God, Jesus Christ, and astronomers. Our conclusion is warranted. There has not been lost or gained any time since creation. The cycle of the week has come down from the seventh day of creation week.
All this has been to apply the first of three requirements of a true Sabbath upon Sunday. This requirement was in the form of this question, Is it because God appointed it? This application led to the sounding out of the possibility of a broken cycle that would10
The True Sabbath
(Continued from page 9)
account for the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week. The whole period was divided into two parts, with Christ as the end of the first and the beginning of the second. At the end of the discussion of the first period a conclusion was drawn which did not wholly follow from the discussion. This conclusion was, that Christ did not preach a new day or keep any other. The proof for this statement was then presented before taking up the second period of time. Thus was discussed all the possibilities for the justification of Sunday as the true Sabbath in the light of the first of three requirements. These possibilities yielded no proof.
REQUIREMENT 2. If Sunday is the true Sabbath, is it not because the prophets declared it such?
Now we will all agree that the prophets taught the word of God. Also so far we must admit that the seventh-day Sabbath was a part of God’s word. This then follows: Whatever the prophets said concerning the Sabbath was in accordance with God’s seventh-day Sabbath. This means that when Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or any other prophet said things concerning a Sabbath, whether the prefix, seventh-day, preceded it or not, there is no room for doubt. They spoke in accordance with God’s established, unchanged seventh-day Sabbath.
REQUIREMENT 3. If Sunday is the true Sabbath, is it not because Christ kept it and perpetuated it?
The quest in verification of this has already been defeated in the discussion of the possibility of a broken cycle in the application of the first requirement to Sunday. Therein was summoned the evidence that Christ kept, taught, and perpetuated the Sabbath of the commandment.
So, then, Sunday cannot stand the test of these Sabbath requirements. God did not bless, sanctify, rest upon, and hallow Sunday. The weekly cycle has not been broken to that extent that it causes the Sunday of our time to coincide with the seventh day of creation.
