p. 196 | A GRADUAL PROCESS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 19, 1879

A GRADUAL PROCESS.

The following question and its answer we take from the Christian Union of June 11, 1879. The concessions made in the answer to the question, and with which it seems any well-informed and unprejudiced person must agree, are utterly fatal to any claims for Sunday sanctity:—

When, why, and by whom was the day of rest changed from the seventh to the first? Has the Christian Sabbath been observed since the time of the apostles? READER.

The Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, not by any positive authority, but by a gradual process. Christ was in the tomb during the seventh day. He rose upon the first. The Christians naturally observed the first day as a festal day in the early church, and as gradually the Gentile Christians came to be the vast majority in the Church, they cared little or nothing about Jewish observances of any kind, abandoned the Jewish Sabbath, along with temple services and the like, and thus, by a natural process, the first day of the week came to take its place.

We do not see how any one who regards the fourth commandment as a statute binding on the whole human race, and also regards the day of the week as fixed by that statute, and assents to the law, can do other than observe the seventh day as his Sabbath. We regard the object of all the laws of the Bible to be the development of character, and under Christ every Christian has full liberty to use those laws as will best serve the development of character in himself and his neighbors. Therefore, we should not hesitate to use any rest day which the community in which we were living used.

Analyzing the above we have about this solution of the question: When was the Sabbath changed? By a gradual process beginning somewhere in the early church. Why? Echo answers, Why? By whom? By no positive authority, not by Christ or his apostles, but chiefly by the converts who came in from the Gentile or pagan world. But how shall we understand the remark about using the laws of the Bible in the best manner to develop character? We had supposed that God had fixed the standard of character, and given a law, obedience to which would secure that character. The spiritualist says that the ten commandments are best kept in their violation. This writer says that the law of the Sabbath (which, if there is any such law, confines a person, as he acknowledges, to a particular and specified day of the week) is kept by using any rest day adopted by the majority. This is the way to develop a character to go with the multitude, which, in things pertaining to God’s service, is the broad way. But we imagine that God would be better pleased with obedience to his word, though we might find ourselves thereby with the minority.