p. 3 | ONE GOOD PROOF by E. E. Gardner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 3, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 36.

ONE GOOD PROOF.

By E. E. Gardner

A SUGGESTIVE answer was recently given to the question, “What one conclusive proof have you that Christ did not change the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week?”

The simple fact that the inspired writings nowhere record the Saviour as mentioning the first day of the week, was the answer.

But what is there so significant about this silence, returned the first party?

Let me explain, replied the second. Christ could not have changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week, without making mention of the day to which it was changed. Notice the divine way of making a Sabbath, and see how specific the record is of the particular day involved:—

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” Gen. 2: 1-3.

Five expressions of the day of the Sabbath in this one brief record. Again in the wording of the commandment which enjoins its observance:—

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; 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. Ex. 20: 8-11.

Thus the Lord sets forth the divine institution. Would it be like God to change this to another day of the week and in the change make no mention of the other day?

In Isa. 28:10 the Lord declares His manner of teaching truth to a world-blinded people. “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” This being the divine order, it appears quite evident that another party has been at work on the change. When God makes an institution, He speaks in no uncertain terms. Might it not fitly be said of this assumed change of day, as in the parable of another questionable appearance, “An enemy hath done this”?

E. E. GARDNER.

Cresco, Ia.