NOT ALWAYS “FACTS.”

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 50.

NOT ALWAYS “FACTS.”

We have great respect for the Wesleyan Herald of Philadelphia, because we believe it is earnestly striving to inculcate the religion of Christ. But we can not say as much for a series of articles entitled,—

“Forty-eight Facts Which Prove That Seventh-day Adventism Is Opposed to Reason, Common Sense, and the Bible.”

We clip at random eight of these “facts” (we have not space for more) as samples of all, from the issue of the Herald of October 17:—

34. Christ set apart the first day of the week by His resurrection, and met His followers on that day and the week following, namely, the first day, and after His ascension He and the Father ratified it by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost—the first day of the week.

35. The Christian dispensation is a spiritual one, and to be carried on by the Holy Ghost, who commenced the work on the first day of the week.

36. Christ commanded His apostles and disciples to tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high: They tarried, and the endowment came on the first day of the week—the Lord’s day.

37. The Christian church was organized, and three thousand converted, on the first day of the week—the Lord’s day.

38. The Christian church was never known to meet for worship on the seventh-day Sabbath, during the lives of the apostles.

39. The Christian church met statedly on the first day of the week. Acts 20: 7; 1 Cor. 16: 1, 2.

40. Paul went to the synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath to preach and reason with the people. He chose that day; for had he gone any other day, he would have found the synagogue with no one in it; yet he never went to preach to a Christian society on that day.

41. The history of events that would affect the church until the period when the stone without hands would become a great mountain and fill the earth, was revealed to John on the Isle of Patmos on the Lord’s day, the first day of the week. Revelation 1.

Let us briefly consider them.

34. Where is the Bible proof, even one statement, that Christ set apart the first day of the week? If His resurrection as an event did this, why did not His betrayal set apart another day, His crucifixion another, His ascension another? They are equally

logical propositions. He did not meet His followers till the evening after the first day. All the day went by uncelebrated, unkept, unobserved till the evening came, when the apostles gathered to their common abode (Acts 1:13), where Jesus met with them. The day was far spent when He met with the two at Emmaus; they returned eight miles to Jerusalem after that, and it was subsequent to their arrival that Jesus met with them. See Luke 24:13-48. The next meeting was not the eighth day after, but “after ‘eight days’” from the first, which could by no known law of numbers fall on the next first day. John 20:26. The reason why Jesus then met with them was to convince Thomas. The next meeting may have been on a first day; the discouraged disciples had gone fishing. John 21.

35. True; any dispensation of God is spiritual. He is spirit; His “law is spiritual;” and so is all His work. The Spirit of God first began its work for the world on the first day; but still the seventh day was the Sabbath. See Gen. 2:3; Job 26:13; Ps. 33:6; 104:30. The Spirit of God in the New Testament does not counterwork the same Spirit in Genesis and Exodus and the life and example of Jesus Christ.

36. It was not the first day of the week which was honored by the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost; for it is not even mentioned, but the antitype of Pentecost. Between Christ’s ascension and the Pentecost one first day is passed over in silence, which would not have been if it was the first day He designed to honor.

37. Where is the Bible record that the Christian church was organized on the first day of the week? Was there not a Christian church when Christ chose and ordained His apostles? Matthew 10. Was there not a Christian church in Abel’s day? By whose blood was he saved? Acts 4:12. To this writer of “facts” Jesus Christ is not “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”

38. Jesus kept all His Father’s commandments, including the Sabbath (John 15:10; Luke 4:16), and His disciples, His church, followed in His footsteps. See Luke 23:56; 1 Thess. 4:13; 1 John 2:6; also Acts 16:13; 17:2; 18:1-11.

39. Acts 20:7 is the only record of a meeting of the early Christians on the first day of the week; but the text and context show that that was a special meeting, called because Paul was about to leave them, held on what we would call Saturday night; the light part of that day being spent by Paul in journeying on foot from Troas to Assos. The reason why the meeting is recorded was because, evidently, of the notable miracle wrought. 1 Cor. 16:2 commands that each disciple should “lay by him in store” what money he could give. Surely that is not putting it into a church collection.

40. Paul preached elsewhere from the synagogues. See Acts 16:13. On one occasion he preached to the Jews; the next Sabbath, by request, to the Gentiles. Acts 13:14-50. At Athens he entered into partnership with Jews (Sabbath-keepers) in tent-making, preaching every Sabbath to both Jews and Gentiles, at first in the synagogue, afterward in the house of a Christian believer. Paul tells us that he had “not shunned to declare” “all the counsel of God,” and that he “kept back nothing that was profitable” (Acts 20:27, 20), yet he nowhere tells us of Sunday sacredness or a change of God’s Sabbath.

41. Paragraph numbered 41 is without a shadow of Biblical truth. Rev. 1:10 speaks of the Lord’s day, but does not say what day of the week it is. Do you wish to know, reader? Here is the Word of God:—

“The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20:10.

“The Sabbath, . . . My holy day.” Isa. 58:13.

“The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28.

What day is the Lord’s day according to the Bible?

Now the one who writes these “Facts” for the Wesleyan Herald prefaces them with this note:—

The following forty-eight facts have been compiled from the writings of Revs. C. S. Gitchell, B. T. Roberts, and D. M. Canright, who was formerly a prominent minister among these people, J. S. T. Milligan, and others.

We are willing to believe this one fact. If Pastor Sims had honestly sought to compile them from the Word, we believe he would have come to different conclusions. Try it, brother. These men can not stand in the judgment for you. Are not Christ’s teaching and example worth more?