CAN BOTH BE TRUE?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 29.

CAN BOTH BE TRUE?

At the recent California Christian Endeavor Convention Dr. A. J. Frost, Baptist, gave an address on the “Christian Sabbath.” Here is one of his positions:—

“If I had time I should be glad to tell you of the creation Sabbath; to show you that just as the six days of creation were indefinite periods of time, so the seventh day, God’s Sabbath, has already lasted about six thousand years. God’s great rest day of Sabbath and redemption work, is not yet completed. Adam kept not God’s Sabbath—he did not live long enough.”

Here is another position:—

“Adam’s Sabbath was on the first day of the week. The first day Adam ever saw was a Sabbath. God did not make Adam and Eve until Saturday, along toward night, so Adam’s week began with a Sabbath. If I had time I would try and show you how creation Sabbath on the first day of Adam’s week is exactly the same as the Christian sabbath on the first day of Adam’s week. The first day of Adam’s week synchronizes with the first day of the Christian week.”

By what trick of theological prestidigitation Dr. Frost can harmonize these two statements we do not know. First, we are told that God’s Sabbath, the only Sabbath, mark you, reader, revealed in Genesis 1 and 2, is not ended yet! it “is not yet completed!” Secondly, we are told that “creation Sabbath,” the only Sabbath revealed in Genesis 1 and 2, came on “the first day of Adam’s week,” and is identical with “the Christian sabbath.” That is, the seventh day of that first week is not yet ended, that Adam did not live long enough to keep it, and yet that same day made the first day of Adam’s week!! If the first theory is true, the second is not, and we have no account at all of the twenty-four-hour day and the septenary cycle of such days. If the latter theory be true, the first is not, and the geological periods must go. The latter is true as respects the length of day; for the record expressly states that God’s resting was past before he blessed and set apart the day for man. God blessed the day “because that in it he had rested.” See Gen. 2: 2, 3. But Adam was created on the sixth day, saw all the beasts and fowls of earth, named them, but found among them no companion (Gen. 2: 19, 20); he was put to sleep, Eve was created (verses 21–23), and all this was done on the sixth day (chap. 1: 24–31). Therefore Adam’s first day corresponded to our Friday, and the day of God’s rest was his second day of life. The ninth day of his life was his first holy Sabbath, appointed of God, and so was every succeeding seventh day thereafter.

Dr. Frost says again:—

“In regard to the Mosaic Sabbath, we know that when the children of Egypt left their land it was on Saturday; that God gave them a new Sabbath one day earlier.”

For this Dr. Frost gives no proof, for the simple reason that he has none to give. The seventh day of the fourth commandment (Ex. 20: 8–11) is the seventh day of Gen. 2: 2, 3.

Another argument of Dr. Frost is that the Greek of Matt. 28: 1; Mark 16: 2, etc., calls the first day of the week the “Sabbath,” and that Sabbatōn never means week. In reply it is sufficient to say that the learned men who gave us our English Bible, and those who revised it, saw no ground, even for a marginal alternative reading, to translate Sabbatōn in the passages referred to by any other word than week; and that the word is most obviously used for week—see Luke 18: 12, where the Greek word for week is the same as found in Mark 16: 9. Our revisers knew that the grammatical construction of the Greek demanded that Sabbatōn should be translated “week.”

After such arguments, we are prepared for Dr. Frost’s close, and that is a plea for Sunday legislation. That always has been the alternative to which those turn who persistently cling to error in the face of truth. If a Baptist had Bible ground, would he want civil law? Would any other Christian?