"Our Sunday; Whence and What?"
By Editor
BEFORE giving quotations from Dr. Nisbet's argument against the Sunday as a day divinely ordained to be observed, we must notice his abuse of the words of Jehovah as to the significance and importance of the rest day of creation. Thus he speaks:— "God's thought in the gift of the seventh-day Sabbath to the Jew, was not merely cessation of labor on it—there was in it as its deepest, fullest, most precious significance, prophecy backwards and prophecy forwards. The seventh-day rest pointed backwards, was memorial of God's deliverance from Egypt, and sign that Jehovah their covenant God, and no idol, brought them that deliverance; pointing forwards, it was promise of the perfect rest in Christ, in Heaven. The rest day given the Jews by Jehovah on his leading them out of Egypt, in the divine thought of it, how far-reaching, precious, cheering! to the heart rightly interpreting it, how well fitted to nourish courage, and allegiance to Jehovah, the seventh-day Sabbath giver! How much more worthy of God this conception of the Jewish seventh-day rest, than conceived of simply as a twenty-four hours' cessation from labor, required because God ceased his labors of creating after six days!" Mr. Nisbet's style is anything but happy, but we care only for his sentiment, which is generally very unfortunate. Perhaps if we were "degreed" to write D. D. to our name we should be able to appreciate the expression, "prophecy backwards." But with the open Bible before us, we cannot appreciate the idea which he aims to enforce. The seventh-day Sabbath was not a "prophecy backwards," nor yet a memorial of their deliverance from Egypt. The Lord said by Moses that he commanded them to keep the Sabbath because he brought them out of Egypt, where, in their rigorous servitude, we know they could not keep it. And for the same reason he required them to do justice in judgment, to be honest in deal, and to observe all his statutes. Lev. 19:35-37; Deut. 24:17, 18. We might say, with equal propriety, that all these things were memorials of their deliverance from Egypt. There may be local reasons for enforcing the observance of an institution or obedience to a precept, while that local reason does not at all lie at the foundation of the institution or the precept. It may be said in truth that we in America ought to praise and worship God for the enjoyment of so many privileges of light and liberty. But that does not prove that they are not under obligation to worship who do not enjoy these same privileges. Mr. Nisbet certainly engages in a work of supererogation when he attempts to point out what is "much more worthy of God" than the word and action of God himself! The Creator needs no such vindication of his character. The force of our remark will be appreciated when it is considered that God never gave the reason for the institution which Mr. N. adopts, while the only reason which the Scriptures give for the Sabbath is that which he belittles! When he declares that it is less worthy of God to conceive of or enforce the Sabbath because Jehovah rested upon the seventh day after creating six days, he places himself against the words of inspiration in Gen. 2:3, and the words of Jehovah himself in Ex. 20:8-11. Search the Scriptures through and you will find no other reason for the institution than that God made the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested the seventh day. Says Jehovah: "Wherefore [for this reason] the Lord blessed the Sabbath day (the day of the rest), and hallowed it;" consecrated it, or set it apart to a sacred use. In this day of increasing light on this subject, we must think that nothing but the vail of prejudice prevents the wise of the world seeing the force of the Scripture declarations concerning the significance and importance of the Sabbath. That much stress is laid upon "the knowledge of God" in all the Scriptures, we need not stop to prove. The nations that "know not God" shall perish. Now hear what the Lord says of his Sabbath:— "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Eze. 20:12. "And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Verse 20. With these connect Ex. 31:17: "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed." Thus the Sabbath is a sign whereby we may know the Lord God, and that Jehovah is the true God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Compare Jer. 10:2-12. There are some who profess to know God, but in works deny him. Titus 1:16. "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." 1 John 2:3. The characteristic that Jehovah has given to distinguish him from false gods is that he is the Creator of all things. Had this Sabbath of the Lord been always kept, the nations could not have forgotten him. The world—we mean the civilized world—now affects to be wise enough to stand no longer in need of this Heaven-given means of the knowledge of the true God. But in this even the educated in philosophy and theology are following in the wake of the nations which preceded them, of whom the apostle said: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Rom. 1:22. Although his eternal power and Godhead are "understood by the things that are made," the visible creation, these give the glory that belongs to Jehovah to the things of earth, and to the works of their own hands. They who thus "become vain in their imaginations" in these days, who profess themselves to be wise, turn away from God, the Creator, and worship a figment of their own brain which they call "Evolution." But we are thankful that there are a few, "a remnant," on the earth, who will not turn away from the Creator, but believe his word and keep his commandments. We might strengthen this position, but now turn to the words of Mr. Nisbet on the "whence" of "Our Sunday." And here we would gladly transfer pages to our columns if our space permitted. He examines Hessey's arguments for the divine New Testament institution of Sunday, and says:— "Hessey denies that Christ rising from the dead on the first day of the week, consecrates it. 'I cannot see,' he says, 'how an act or fact can establish an ordinance not necessarily connected with it, unless it is declared by the agent (as in the case of the Mosaic Sabbath and the manna), that it is intended to give sanction to it.' Christ gives no hint that his resurrection on the first day of the week in any way teaches its consecration. The meeting of Christ with his disciples after his resurrection on two successive first days of the week, Hessey regards of small weight in the matter, and justly, for the peculiar happenings of the first day would naturally call the disciples together, and naturally for their encouragement the Risen One would show himself to them, and nothing of the perpetual ordinance of a sacred day even be thought of as taught in this gathering nor in the similar gatherings of the next weekly return of the wonderful and glad event. If Christ proposed to institute the first day as a new positive sacred ordinance, it may fairly be claimed that by some word during the forty days' stay with his disciples he would have so indicated, and that the Holy Spirit—the churches' teacher—would have so recorded—but not a hint—silence here is negation." "Hessey claims that the first day of the week 'received a most signal mark in the descent of the Holy Spirit' on the day of Pentecost (that year falling on the first day, but even this depends upon a specific way of reckoning the fifty days). Hessey's own argument just given in respect to the resurrection on the first day, applies equally well here. There is nothing in the act itself declarative of the institution of a new sacred day, nor does the agent of the act—the Father—by any word so interpret the act. Much more reasonable is this view—Pentecost was a very famous festival of the Jews—Jews were gathered to it from all quarters of the world, and many Gentiles; the Holy Spirit was given on that day because of the multitudes in Jerusalem, that these multitudes might be eye-and-ear witnesses of the wonders resulting from the descent, and throughout the world spread the news. 'So that the thing being casual as to the day,' says Morer, 'and special as to the business then by God intended, it will afford us little proof either that the Lord's day was then observed, or that the Spirit selected that day for so great a work, to dignify it for a Sabbath.' The apostles never so hint, and for us at this distant day so to interpret the descent—the institution of a perpetually binding sacred day—seems 'far-reached and ill supported.'" "The 'divine institution' of Sunday, Hessey claims, is taught by its being 'observed by the apostles.' But the fact is that outside of the two first days of the week immediately succeeding the resurrection—which Hessey himself throws out as having no weight—and Pentecost—which is otherwise amply accounted for—there is no record of 'apostles' ever having met with each other, nor with disciples nor others on the first day of the week. In only one instance is an apostle said to have met with any company of persons on the first day of the week, viz.: Acts 20:7: 'Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them'—generally interpreted as speaking of a customary gathering of the Troas Christians on this day, and Paul happening to be in the city, preached to 'them.' Criticism eliminates as an interpolation from the passage: 'The disciples'—the new version rightly translates: 'When we [Paul, Luke, and their companions in travel, verse 4] were gathered to break bread, Paul discoursed with them.' 'Them' refers to the people of the city, not necessarily Christians at all, who had gathered in at the time of eating, according to the free customs of those times—even into a Pharisee's house, when Jesus was eating, a notorious woman of the town came in unhindered (Luke 7:37; Mark 6:31). Among the stranger travelers gathered to eat (almost unanimously expositors hold verse 11th speaks of a social meal, so Hackett, Meyer, Spencer, Bloomfield, Piscator, Grotius, Kuinoel, Alford), was the wonderful man and miracle worker who had 'turned the world upside down'—a crowd of curious people press in and fill the room even to the sitting on the windows (verse 9), and Paul preached to 'them.' The passage does not enounce any religious practice whatever of the Troas Christians. This meeting together of the travelers to 'break bread' on the first day of the week once on their journey, is rather a slim pedestal of 'apostolic precedent' on which to base an ordinance perpetually and universally obligatory on the human race. Some see in Homer more than Homer saw." Were the above criticism written by an advocate of the seventh-day Sabbath, we should expect that the friends of "Our Sunday" would rise up in indignation. They generally do when we try to point out the fallacy of their pro-Sunday inferences. But remember that all this comes from one whose work Dr. Frost accepts and praises, and Prof. Le Conte thinks is clear, strong, and timely. It is "timely," for the time has fully come, in the providence of God, to expose the flimsiness of the current arguments for Sunday, and we have no manner of objection to Dr. Nisbet doing a share of the work. Truth will prevail. "The commandments of God AND the faith of Jesus" will stand unshaken when the traditions of men are swept away. The friends of Sunday are much in the condition of the witnesses against Christ: "Their witness agreed not together." Their house is divided—it cannot stand. The Sunday is a wall daubed with untempered mortar, and the coming storm shall rend it. Eze. 13. It is only a man-made institution, with no word from the Lord to uphold it.