Every Day Holy by W. C. G.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 2, 1872

“Every Day Holy.”

By W. C. G.

AMONG the multifarious excuses which people urge for not keeping the Lord’s Sabbath, we often hear the plea, especially from no-Sabbath Adventists, that they “Keep every day holy.” The same kind of argument is used by Sunday-keepers to defend their practice. They say that Sunday is the Sabbath because they “keep it holy,” which they claim is all that constitutes any day the Sabbath.

The fallacy of such reasoning will be apparent from a moment’s consideration. Man cannot keep a day holy unless it is first made holy. The commandment does not say, “Remember the Sabbath day to make it holy;” but, “keep it holy;” implying that we are simply to keep it in a condition in which it has been placed by an authority higher than that of man.

The same reasoning applies to all other secular days. We cannot keep every day holy unless God has made every day holy; and this we know he has not done, for the record tells us that he blessed and hallowed the seventh day; and concerning no other of the seven is this distinction made.

There is a manifest difference between keeping a day holy and keeping one’s self holy. A godly man may with perfect propriety, declare his purpose of keeping himself holy every day, but to keep every day holy is quite another thing.

We often hear it stated in argument that man cannot make a Sabbath; and that were all the world to keep Sunday holy it would not make it the Sabbath. But we propose to go further than this, and assert that all the world cannot keep Sunday holy, because God has never made it holy.

The only way to keep the Sabbath holy is by holy rest. And although a man may lead a holy life every day, and commit no act which is sinful in itself, yet he can never “keep every day holy.”

W. C. G.