A Methodist Church Paper on the Sabbath Question by K. C. Russell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1907

A Methodist Church Paper on the Sabbath Question

By K. C. Russell

K. C. RUSSELL

The Peninsula Methodist of June 30 is largely devoted to the discussion of the Sunday question, involving the work of Seventh-day Adventists. The paper not only attempts to prove Sunday to be the day that should be observed by Christians, but also discusses the question of Sunday legislation in other countries as well as our own.

The argument made in defense of the Sunday sabbath is practically a thrashing over of the same old arguments which are generally used by those who attempt to bolster up the idea of Sunday sacredness, so I will not weary the reader with all of the oft-repeated and groundless assertions made in this paper. It is sufficient to say that it is claimed that Sunday observance is based upon the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week, and that Christ and the apostles showed special regard for the day, etc.

The first article in this paper, entitled “The Christian Sabbath,” begins as follows:

“The Sabbath was given to Moses in the wilderness, and was effective until the resurrection of Christ, and not a week after.”

This statement, implying that the Sabbath was first given in the wilderness, is not only in flagrant contradiction of the Bible, which plainly teaches that it originated in Eden at the close of creation week (Gen. 2: 1-3; Ex. 20: 8-11), but is also out of harmony with the teachings indorsed by the Methodist Church. Binney’s “Theological Compendium Improved,” on page 169, in speaking of the seventh day of the week, says, “The day appointed of God, at the close of creation, because that in it God himself had rested from his work.”

Again: it is stated in this remarkable treatise on the Sunday question by the Peninsula Methodist: “We have nothing in the Word of God to warrant the statement that in the beginning of the human race, every seventh day was to be used as a celebration day to commemorate the creation.” In reply to this assertion it will be only necessary for the reader to consider the fourth commandment of the decalogue, which begins with the word “remember;” this word itself is suggestive of a memorial. We read, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . 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.” This scripture will be sufficient to demonstrate to every candid mind that the seventh-day Sabbath is a memorial of creation. In this assertion the editor of the Peninsula Methodist also takes a position which contradicts the view considered authoritative by the Methodist Church on this point; for in the same volume of Binney’s works referred to above, it says, on page 169, that “the seventh-day Sabbath, God’s blessing and sanctifying the day, meant that he separated it from a common to a religious one to be a perpetual memorial, or sign, that all who thus observed it would show themselves to be worshippers of that God who made the world in six days and rested on the seventh.”

In speaking of the non-essential features of the Sabbath question, an article by W. H. Poole says: “Of these, perhaps, the one most potent for mischief has come from the efforts of some well-meaning people to make all true Sabbath-keeping depend on the particular day of the week to be observed.” The facts are that those who are agitating a better observance of the Sunday institution, and who desire to have it sustained by civil enactment, are determined that the day to be kept should be that particular day of the week called Sunday. To illustrate: not long since I had an interview with a prominent Sunday advocate who claimed to be greatly burdened because the poor laboring men were being oppressed by their employers in that they were obliged to work on Sunday. I replied that I thought it was a good thing for a man to rest one day in seven; but that if it was simply the rest that they desired to secure for the toiler, why not select some other day as well as Sunday? To this the reply was quickly given that the rest day must be Sunday because that was the Christian sabbath.

Thus it will be clearly seen that those who criticize observers of the seventh day for placing so much stress upon the observance of a particular day of the week, are also insisting upon the observance of a particular day, and that particular day must always be Sunday. So anxious are they in this, that they want it enforced upon all by civil enactment.

How quickly this difficulty regarding the Sabbath controversy could be settled if the golden rule, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” were followed.