SABBATH VS. FIRST-DAY by A. J. Scover

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 27, 1878

SABBATH VS. FIRST-DAY.

By A. J. Scover

Our opponents frequently say of the Sunday, the first day of the week, the day in which our Lord arose from the dead, that it is the seventh day if we but commence to number from Monday. That would be true provided man had the numbering of the days of the week, but God has never accorded him that privilege. God reserved that right to himself, and called upon man to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Did the ancient prophets forget this? No. Did Christ forget it. No; he said the Sabbath was made for man. Did the apostles forget it? No; for Luke repeatedly tells us where they were and what was done on the “Sabbath day.”

These all walked with God, and he measured the time. They remembered the Sabbath as it came around, and they knew too, just what day to call the first day of the week, and recorded events and transactions that transpired upon that day; but they never called it the Sabbath, because the Sabbath always came upon the seventh day.

Then how is it that the popular testimony of to-day is that Sunday is the Sabbath? If Sunday is the Sabbath, it, per consequence, must be the seventh day; and if it is the seventh day, then we make the apostles liars, for they called it the first day, and the day before they called the Sabbath day. If God measures time, and Christ, the apostles, and the prophets all told the truth, then where is the Catholic and Protestant Sabbath? Who is its author? Who has divinely said that the first day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God? God, Christ, prophets, and apostles are not its authors. Then who but Antichrist is its author? But this makes it an antichristian institution.

A. J. Scover.