The Law of the Sabbath by D. R. Dungan

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 29, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 29.

The Law of the Sabbath.

By D. R. Dungan

THERE is now a very earnest effort being made by Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists to bring about a return to Sabbath-keeping according to the law. If I have understood them correctly, their positions are as follows:—

The Sabbath was given at the creation of the world.
It was given to all men, and was to be observed during all time.
It was to be observed on the seventh day of the week.
The law of which it was a part has never been done away.

Now, beyond all question, if their theory is right, their practice cannot be wrong. I understand the religious world generally to agree with their views concerning the giving of that law, as to form, time, and extent. Indeed, I am not aware that either of the four positions taken by Sabbatarians is dissented from by the average religious teacher of to-day. Still, the practice is very distinct. The whole religious world, aside from the parties already named, keep the first day of the week instead of the seventh, which was required to be observed by the law.

Here is a manifest inconsistency, and no man can deny it. If God required us to keep the seventh day of the week, keeping the first will not be obeying that command. And it is vain to talk of keeping the spirit of a law when we deliberately violate its letter. It is impossible to be religiously right and scripturally wrong at the same time. If God commanded all men to keep the seventh day of the week, and has never changed or removed that law, then we must either keep the seventh day or violate the commandment of God. This is so self-evident that to elaborate or repeat it would indicate a want of confidence in my readers.

Some have been heard to say, however, that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. But the Bible does not know anything of any such a change. No inspired man ever called the first day of the week the Sabbath. It was centuries after the last apostle was dead before men began to speak of keeping the Sabbath by observing the first day.

It will be said, however, that the Sabbath, as required of the Israelite, could not be observed in cold climates, and hence the rigor of the law must necessarily have been somewhat abated. But if any such necessity has existed. He who gave the law has surely known it quite as well as any of his creatures, and has therefore, somewhere in his word, removed the severities of the law, or he has not intended it to be regarded in these cold climates. But if it was not intended for these northern countries, then it was not meant to be universal. Hence all that may be legitimately argued from the fact of a needed change in the severities of the fourth command, is that it was not intended for persons living in cold climates. No one can change a law in any feature, except he who gave it. And if God had made any such a change, such amending enactment could be found somewhere in the Bible. But as no such enactment can be found, the law remains as it was.

I have heard a peculiar argument against the Sabbath to the effect that all men cannot observe the Sabbath at the same time; that when it is daylight on one side of the globe, it is night on the other. Hence, while one-half of the world are keeping the Sabbath, the other part will be busily at work. They illustrate by starting two men around the world from the same place, but in opposite directions. With one the days get shorter, and with the other they grow longer, so that the man going east has gained a day on his neighbor, at their next meeting; hence one will be keeping one day for Sabbath, and the other will be keeping the next. And some ingenious person has made a reckoning, showing clearly enough, to himself, that we are really now keeping the seventh, not the first day. All this seems to me very much like surrendering the question. These men say—without intending it—that the Sabbath-keepers are right in their demands, and that it is necessary for us to find some way of excusing ourselves. Whatever difficulties there may be found in keeping the Sabbath in other countries or under other circumstances than could be found in Palestine at the time it was intended for the Israelites, may show that it was not given to other peoples, but can have no effect to prove that the law has in any sense changed.

Again, it is argued that Jesus taught the superiority, not only of man, but also of the beast, to the strict demands of the Sabbath. It is claimed that Jesus violated this law when occasion required, and justified himself in doing so on the ground that human want was of more importance than the letter of the law. But no man has yet been able to find a single instance in which Jesus violated any declaration of the law given by Moses. He could not do so after the statement we find in Matt. 5: 17–19:—

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven.”

No one could be the author of that language and then violate the law himself without gross inconsistency, such as would unfit him for a public teacher.

Christ neither violated the law nor winked at such conduct on the part of any one else. No case has yet been reported, and no such teaching can be found as coming from him.

Sabbatarians are claiming, and with some show of reason, that a large majority of the Protestant clergy believe just as they do respecting the sanctity of the Sabbath, and that, if their popularity and salaries were not endangered, they would advocate the keeping of the seventh day just as they do. They conclude this from their admissions, as before stated, which legitimately bind them to the law of the Sabbath. They further claim, too, that the devotion of the Christian world to the first day of the week, is a superstition which has no higher origin than the edict of a heathen king.

Now to my mind the question resolves itself into this: Are we now under the law of which the Sabbath was a part, or is the Sabbath now binding on Christians? For it is certain, if we are to keep the Sabbath, then we are bound to observe the seventh day of the week.—Elder D. R. Dungan, Disciple.