Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 28, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 17.

“Enquire and make search and ask diligently.”

765. Does the Day Matter?

Would there come to the people greater good by keeping the seventh day than there does now by keeping the first day? And if no greater good would come to the people, would it not be best for all people who love Jesus to work together and see that the day recognized by the church in general and by all States is really made a day of rest, and thereby stop this controversy? And those whose conscience will not allow them to work on the seventh day could rest then also on the first day. Yours in Christ,

E. J. V.

Let us answer these questions, in part at least, by asking others. (1) Is it a right Christian motive, a motive of true faith, to seek to measure which of two ways are best when God has spoken? Has not God commanded the seventh day? Did He not set it apart for man, by example, by precept, and finally sanction it by the life and example of Jesus Christ? Has He so given another day? He says, “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Knowing His commandments, ought we to ask, “Will it pay?” or to question at all God’s way? Ought not faith in God always say, God’s way is the only safe way, the only good and true way, whatever the appearances? If God’s people had always kept the Sabbath, there would have been no idolatry, no worship of false gods, no substitution of evolution for the sanctifying power of His grace. See Eze. 20:12, 20. (2) To compromise truth for peace, to please the multitude that hold to error, is to set the multitude in the place of God. It was in this way that the heathen Sunday came into the church, and with it purgatory, demon, or saint, worship, pedobaptism, the idolatrous mass, and many other things. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” Ex. 23:2; Hosea 10:13. Because of this we find men appealing to human law to support a sabbath instead of to God. (3) We can make a day our rest, but can we make it God’s rest? for that is what the Sabbath is to the believer. Can we keep a day “holy” which God has not made holy? Can unholy men keep a holy day holy? Ought we not “in Christ” “to obey God rather than men”? (4) What will the “people who love Jesus” do? He says, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.”

766. Arius and His Doctrines.

At what age of the world did Arius live, and what was the doctrine which he advocated? Was it a branch faith from the Christian church, or did it arise from Jewish tenets?

Arius was a presbyter of Alexandria, and lived probably between the years A.D. 260 and 336. He wrote between the years A.D. 318 and 325. He maintained that the Son was not equal to the Father, and strongly opposed the Trinitarians. That he has been grossly maligned is evident. About all we know of his doctrines is what has come to us through his enemies, in a not overscrupulous age. He supposed that he got his theory from the New Testament, and was probably much nearer right than his opponents.