SABBATH-KEEPING by A. P. Bamberger

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 6, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 10.

SABBATH-KEEPING

By A. P. Bamberger

God’s way of Sabbath-keeping is, as it always has been, and ever will be, “according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56 tells us that the women returned from the burial of Jesus, and prepared spices and ointments, and “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” The commandment referred to says that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20:10. Jesus declares that this same seventh-day Sabbath “was made for man; therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath day.” Mark 2:27, 28. “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him; and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” Col. 1:16, 17.

Then if the heavens and the earth, and all that in them is, was created by Jesus Christ, He could well tell the people, when He was upon earth, that the seventh-day Sabbath was made for man, and that He, the Creator, was Lord also of the Sabbath day; for if by Him all other things were made, so surely was the seventh-day Sabbath made by Him, as well as the other six days, wherein all things were created and made by Him. Therefore the Lord commanded His people to “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 man servant, nor thy maid servant, 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.

Had sin never entered our world, man never would have thought to change the Sabbath. Sunday-keeping, therefore, is a blot on creation caused by sin. Now as there is no “thus saith the Lord” for the sanctification of the first day of the week as a day of rest, it can not be of divine planting, and the Lord Jesus hath said, “Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Matt. 15:13. The unchangeable Creator has told us with unmistakable plainness which day He did bless and sanctify. “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.” Gen. 2:3. God has also said, “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of

the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; . . . for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. 58:13, 14.

Now permit me to ask one plain question: Do you believe that our kind Creator, who never made a mistake, has taken the sanctified blessing of the seventh day of the week, making a secular day of it, and has transferred the sanctified blessing and grafted it upon the first day of the week? He has never given us any reason for such a change, nor even hinted in His Word that we should keep the first day holy.

Reader, who will you believe and obey in this matter, God or man? The former commands us to remember to keep holy the seventh day, and the latter says to remember to keep holy the first day. Jesus says, “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me.” John 5:39. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away.” Matt. 24:35. “He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him; the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” John 12:48.

Be not deceived, dear reader; God is not mocked, neither is He the author of confusion. The Bible Sabbath is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God; it rests upon the everlasting rock of God’s Word; it is unchangeable, because God is unchangeable; it may be trampled underfoot, it may be vilified by false witnesses, as was its Lord, who said it was made for man. It may be crucified between thieves and buried, as was its Maker; but, notwithstanding all opposition, it lives, because it is of God. It is founded in eternal fact, and forever upheld by the Word of God. Such is the Lord’s Sabbath, the seventh day; God fixed it at creation, and no human power on earth can move it from its place.

A. P. Bamberger.