p. 7 | A GREAT DISCOVERY by N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1897

“A GREAT DISCOVERY.”

By N. G.

The Christian Endeavourer, of Chicago, claims to be “the first paper to publish the great discovery that the Jewish Sabbath did not come on Saturday, and that ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy’ had no reference to the keeping of Saturday.” The author seems to have made his discovery by a mysterious sleight-of-hand juggling of the weekly Sabbath and the ceremonial sabbaths, together with a labyrinth of time reckoning that begins and ends in the worst of confusion. As might be expected, however, the sweeping assertion above quoted is stultified by the author’s own words, when he says, “The first day of the week was the day which immediately followed the single or double weekly Sabbath.”

Quack nostrums are frequently advertised under the attractive caption of “great discovery,” and this one reminds us of a saying accredited to Artemus Ward, that “it is better not to know so much than to know so many things that are not true.” In religious matters, especially in that which pertains to the law of God, there is but one legitimate place of discovery, namely, the Scriptures of truth. “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8: 20.

One will search the Scriptures in vain to find a weekly institution known as the “Jewish Sabbath.” The weekly Sabbath enjoined upon the Jews was the “Sabbath of the Lord,” the same Sabbath that was made in the beginning, when “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work.” Gen. 2: 3. The Sabbath was “made for man” (Mark 2: 27) as a race, when there was no such a people in existence as the Jews. That it was the same Sabbath that was reiterated from Sinai, is shown in the fact that the same reason is given for its observance: “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.”

Thus ended the first week of seven days, and we have no record of any break in the weekly succession. The arrangement of the months and years has been changed; they have been and are unequal, because they are based upon the orbits and revolutions of planets whose movements are variable. But the weekly cycle is an arbitrary, invariable period of time, which is in no way affected by the variableness of the months and years. The Scriptures give us positive proof that up to the time of Christ there had been no change of the week, and therefore no change of the Sabbath. Christ kept the same Sabbath that the Jews kept, for that was “the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23: 56. It was the day before the first day of the week, and could have been none other than the seventh day of the week. “And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.” Mark 16: 1, 2.

The Endeavourer says that “the far-reaching consequences of the discovery in relation to the Jewish Sabbath can not be overestimated.” But the “far-reaching consequences” of any unscriptural “discovery” can always be told in the language of the Scripture. The prophecy of Daniel tells of a power who shall “think to change the times and the law” (chapter 7: 25, R. V.), and it goes on in the next verse to tell the result: “But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” The consequences of tampering with the plain word of God for the purpose of sustaining a man-made innovation is indeed “far-reaching.” And the importance of implicit obedience, even to the jot and tittle (Matt. 5: 18) of the commandments of God, “can not be overestimated.”

The account of this “great discovery” occupies ten columns in the Endeavourer, and is the worst babel on the Sabbath question that we have yet seen. It would be next to a waste of time and space to follow it all through for comment, but as it is set forth as a “Rescue of the Sabbath,” and is backed by the great Christian Endeavor Society, it seems duty to at least show some of the follies into which men fall when they attempt to “destroy the law and the prophets.” Here are a few specimen ingredients of this latest theological decoction:—

“The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 were written by Moses before he went up into the mount to get the tables, hence they are not a copy of the tables.”

“The weekly Sabbaths of the Jews commemorated their freedom from Egyptian slavery, which occurred on Abib 15.”

“The week including the day of Pentecost contained eight days.”

“The weekly Sabbath, from and after the Exodus, occurred on fixed dates, like one’s birthday or the Fourth of July. Therefore, it came on a different day of our week every year.”

“Saturday is not mentioned in the Scriptures.”

“Abib 10, 14, and 16 every year, were to be work or secular days. Each of them would come on Saturday once in seven years, but never on the Sabbath.”

But this is sufficient to show the character of the “new discovery,” and the juggling that is necessary to find a pretext for ignoring the Sabbath of the Lord. The father of this curious muddle is Rev. S. W. Gamble, of the South Kansas Conference of the M. E. Church, and he publishes endorsements of some theological professors of Chicago. Mr. Gamble claims that “this discovery will revolutionize the whole study of the Sabbath question.” This will no doubt be true with those who undertake to follow such vagaries, especially as he proposes to continue his discovery further, and, on similar lines, show “the scriptural authority for the Christian Sunday, or the first day of the week.” N. G.