Misuse of the Name “Sabbath”
Definitions are sources of power and influence. Many words are limited, by their nature and history, to a specific meaning. This is true of proper names. If a publisher were to put the name Longfellow on the title-page of a volume of Emerson’s Essays, and give it to the public, it would be an act of piracy. If John Smith were to write the name of Jay Gould on a business paper, and put it on the market, the courts would deem him a fit subject for the State prison. Proper names belong to specific individuals because the parents of those persons gave them their names. When God created the Sabbath, he named it. When he gave the decalogue, he repeated the name, and described the child to which the name belonged. Speaking of the days of the week as his children, we know that “Sabbath” was the name of the seventh child. This was the prince among the days. Each of the others was known by a simple numeral, this by a sacred name. The Bible does not give God’s Son a specific name—Jesus—any more than it does his day—the Sabbath. Other days have some things in common with the Sabbath; other men have some things in common with Jesus; but the respective names are not therefore interchangeable. Proper names are not transferable, either legally or morally. Historically, the Sabbath retained its name until the time of the Puritan Reformation. But more important is the fact that the Bible, which is the only source of authority on such a question, never applies the name Sabbath to any day except the seventh day of the week. Whenever Christ or the writers of the Bible speak of the Sabbath, it is always by its own name. In the few cases wherein the events of history make it necessary to refer to the “first day of the week,” it is always known by its own name, and no other. The Bible does not recognize that it has the power to change or transfer the names of the days of the week; much less does it delegate to men any such power. These simple facts of history are plain to everyone who will seek for them in the Bible; and no amount of guessing, or assuming, or manufacturing of chronology to fit theories, can explain the facts away. Christ treated the Sabbath as the fourth commandment required, and honored the name and character which his Father had given to it. He pruned away the false elements which Judaism had gathered around it, and left the Sabbath fitted to meet the wants of his church, under the gospel. His immediate followers accepted the Sabbath thus, and no trace of any question concerning its name or observance appears in the New Testament.—The Sabbath Recorder.