Elihu on the Sabbath

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 4, 1877

Elihu on the Sabbath.

(Concluded from last week.)

Reader, dost thou delight in the law of God after the inward man? If not, thy soul should be converted, by praying for the law of God to be put into thy heart, and written in thy mind. But, if the law of God is already thy delight, then why not be reconciled to it? Why not be subject to it just as it stands? Why wish to make void one jot or tittle of it? I do not present the law for justification; but as a perfect rule of right in this life; first, between man and his Creator; secondly, between man and his fellow-man. “Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven.”

The Westminster divines found contradicting the writer of the Acts of the Apostles. These divines say, “From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath, and the first day of the week ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath.”

1. Luke (the writer of the Acts of the Apostles) says, Acts 13:14, Paul and his company went into a synagogue of the Jews on the Sabbath day. This was, according to our account, A. D. 45, and twelve years after the resurrection of Christ. Luke says this was on the Sabbath day, then, at that time. But the divines say this was not on the Sabbath day at that time, but on Saturday, and that the seventh day was not then the Sabbath, neither had been for twelve years. Thus they contradict Luke, plainly and pointedly.

2. Luke says, Acts 13:42, 44, that “when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words of the gospel might be preached to them the next Sabbath.” “And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” This, Luke says, was on the Sabbath day at that time, twelve years after the resurrection. But the divines say that it was not on the Sabbath day at that time; for Sunday had been the Sabbath for twelve years.

3. Luke says, Acts 16:13, “And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made,” A. D. 53, twenty years after the resurrection, and ten years before the Acts of the Apostles was written. This, Luke says, was actually on the Sabbath day at that time—but the divines contradict him, saying this was not the Sabbath at that time, but on Saturday; for the seventh day was not then the Sabbath, neither had been for twenty years—never since the resurrection of Christ! Thus they contradict Luke again; for all admit that Luke always called the seventh day, the day the Jews met in their synagogue, the Sabbath, in the Acts of the Apostles.

4. Luke says, Acts 17:2–4, Paul, at Thessalonica, “as his manner was,” went into a synagogue of the Jews, and so preached Christ and the resurrection three Sabbath days, that some Jews and a great multitude of Gentiles believed. This was twenty years after the resurrection of Christ. This, Luke says, was on three Sabbath days then at that time. But the divines deny this also, because they say that the Sabbath had been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week twenty years before. Thus they give Luke the lie.

5. Luke says, Acts 18:3, 4, Paul, at Corinth, labored with his hands, as tent-maker (on the other days, as we should understand), but “reasoned in the synagogue” every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. This was A. D. 54, twenty-one years after the resurrection of Christ, and nine years before the Acts of the Apostles was written. This, Luke said, or wrote, A. D. 63, the thirtieth year after the resurrection, and the thirteenth year of the Christian church, that this preaching of Paul was on every Sabbath; that is, on every seventh day; the same day that the Jews always met in their synagogue for worship. This is plain, pointed, and positive proof that the seventh day was the Sabbath, at least thirty years after the resurrection of Christ; for Luke testified again and again that those meetings of the Jews and Gentiles were held on the Sabbath, and if Luke was a Christian, then the seventh day was the Christian Sabbath thirty years after the resurrection, the Westminster divines to the contrary notwithstanding. And if the seventh day was the Sabbath thirty years after the resurrection of Christ, as Luke says it was, then it is the Sabbath now. For you will admit that no man or body of men have had any lawful right to alter or change this command of God since A. D. 63. But we find not one word in favor of the idea, not even the least hint or allusion in all the New Testament, that the first day of the week was ever so much as thought of as a Christian Sabbath by any of the apostles while they lived. And you must give it up; yea, and you will give it up, if you search the Scriptures carefully and prayerfully on this subject, and if you have a spirit of discernment, and are willing to forsake error for truth, and if you are an honest Christian in the sight of God.

Now, if the Scriptures are able to make one wise unto salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ, then why need I stop to examine all the various doctrines of popes, councils, and fathers, when in searching I should find pope against pope, council against council, and fathers against fathers? This would be like two companies fighting at great distance, with small arms. But if we wish to come at close action, let us take the armor of truth, which will most assuredly prevail; and the closer the action, the sooner the victory will be won on the side of truth. Now, my dear reader, if you will take the Scriptures and search them as above requested, then you will find the following valuable treasures of knowledge among the many therein contained—

1. You will find Christ himself saying, “The Sabbath was made for man,” and that it was made when the first seven days were made, before man had sinned. The Sabbath was thus made, not for the Jews in particular, but as a gift of God to man, i. e., mankind universally, of all nations and all ages of the world.

2. You will find that before the law was given at Mount Sinai, this was a law and a commandment; Ex. 16; that it was also written by the finger of God, with the “lively oracles,” which God committed to the Jews, to give to us; that this law, by which is the clear knowledge of sin, is an infallible and everlasting rule by which to know what is sin, and what is not sin; that sin is the transgression of the law; and that to act against it, or to do things contrary to it, is sin; but “where no law is, there is no transgression”; that this law Christ came not to destroy, abrogate, or make void; that the law is holy, and just, and good; and that Christians delight in it. And as Paul “had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet,” so we had not known which day of the week was the Sabbath, except the law had said, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Now we know by the law that this is the Sabbath, without the help of commentators.

3. You can find that the resurrection of our Saviour has nothing to do with changing the Sabbath, any more than his birth, his death, or his ascension. Whether he was risen near the end of the Sabbath, or some time before the common time of commencing the first-day Sabbath, so-called, has nothing to do with altering one jot or one tittle of the law of God.

4. You can find that the common reasonings of men, that Christ frequently met with his disciples on the first day of the week, after his resurrection, any more than other days, are false and without foundation; that he went with two of them to Emmaus, about seven and a half miles, and returned to Jerusalem, which would plainly show that he did not regard that day as a Sabbath; that he met with his disciples in the evening, which must have been after the commencement of the second day of the week; see Gen. 1: 8, when they were met, but not to celebrate the resurrection, as false reasoners pretend; that he met with them again “after eight days,” i. e., near the middle of the next week, and again they were together fishing, so that the fishing-day that would prove a Sabbath, as much as either of the first two visits.

5. You can find that Luke had not forgotten the distinction between the “first day of the week” and “the Sabbath day,” Acts 20: 7, in his recording the meeting of the disciples to break bread on that day, and that this is the only time the first day of the week is mentioned in all the Acts of the Apostles; and it is the only notice of Paul's preaching on that particular day, or rather, evening, and that on a particular occasion, viz.: in order to be “ready to depart on the morrow”; that this one instance of the first day's being mentioned proves that it was not on the Sabbath, and that the many meetings of the Jews and Gentiles, believers and unbelievers, where Paul preached “every Sabbath,” certainly did not occur on the first day of the week.

6. You may find that Paul, in giving orders to some of the churches to lay by themselves in store, something according as God had prospered them, on the first day of the week, for the poor saints at Jerusalem, 1 Cor. 16: 2, does not prove that to be the Sabbath day, but that it was not the Sabbath day, nor suitable to a Sabbath day's work, but rather as an offering to the Lord of “the first ripe fruits of their increase,” to be the first business attended to in the week, to reckon up their earnings and incomes, and devote a part of the same, and lay it by itself, so that it would be ready when Paul came. This was a good calculation for the first business of the week.

7. You can find that there is no law of God against doing common labor on the first day of the week, so it is no sin, nor transgression of any law other than the laws and commandments of men.

8. You can find that the Saviour said to his disciples, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Again, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” Again, “Jesus answered and said unto him [Jude], If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

Now, my dear reader, if you neglect or refuse to obey this fourth command of the decalogue, you are left without excuse, and you can plead nothing in extenuation of your neglect. “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.”