“IF IT WERE NOT SO, I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU.”
By T. E. Bowen
JESUS had about finished His earthly mission. A few more hours of suffering were before Him, then He would ascend to His Father. The news of His going away had been broken to His few followers, and they were sorrowful. He had told them that whither He went they could not follow now; but that if faithful, they afterward would come where He was. Jesus saw their sad countenances, and sought to comfort them. “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you,” were a few of His words to them. While this language was calculated to comfort them by pointing them to the time of reunion in the kingdom of God (a hope which is still the source of comfort to the Christian), there is an expression thrown in which has a deep significance upon the Sabbath question. He says, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” That is, if there were not mansions, real and lasting, in His Father’s house, He would have told them so. But He did not tell them differently. They had always looked forward by faith to the city of God as their future eternal home. Their fathers died with their eyes of faith upon this golden city. Of them it is written, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them6afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” Heb. 11:13. Jesus knew this was their belief, and that it was essential for them to have a correct faith as to the future home promised by God. Yet, in view of all this, He says if this had not all been so, He would have told them the exact truth. Therefore it is correctly concluded that His silence upon this point was positive proof that what they believed on this especial point of doctrine was absolutely correct. Some argue that because Jesus said so little about the Sabbath, therefore it was His design to have it changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. But instead of this proving anything in favor of a change, it proves the contrary. Surely, if upon so vital a point of His Father’s law as the day of the Sabbath, had His nation and people been observing the wrong one, He would have told them so. But He did not tell them. His very silence proves conclusively that the Sabbath they observed was the correct day, and was not changed by Him. Had the first day been designed by Him for a day of rest, He certainly would have told them so. It is always safe to follow the Lord. If He was silent upon the change of the rest-day, well will it be for His followers not to venture to change it. Dear reader, had Christ desired you to keep the first day in honor of His resurrection, He would have told you so. But, altho He provided for keeping the Sabbath forty years after His death, at the destruction of Jerusalem, not one sentence did He utter about keeping the first day of the week in honor of His resurrection upon that day. He said if there was not a place for the righteous in heaven, “I would have told you;” and we can safely conclude from this that if the seventh day of the week,—the day upon which God rested at creation; the day proclaimed at Sinai as the rest-day of Jehovah; the day Jesus observed as the Sabbath during His earthly life,—had not been the true Sabbath,—if all this had not been so, He would have told us.