SUN WORSHIP VERSUS SABBATH REFORM.
By S. N. H.
The Sabbath is, and ever will be, the dividing line between the people of God and the world. God designed it thus at the creation. “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.” “Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. . . . The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.” Ex. 31:13–17. “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. . . . 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.” Eze. 20:12–20. “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28. Such are some of the expressions the Lord uses concerning the Sabbath. The fourth commandment reads as follows: “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 manservant, nor thy maidservant, 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. A word in the Bible is a complete thought. The ten commandments are called ten words. Deut. 10:4, margin. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Matt. 4:4. The Lord’s words, or thoughts, are composed of ideas. The fourth commandment contains two grand divisions and several ideas, which, taken together, make one complete thought. The first division has in it four ideas: (1) “Remember the Sabbath day;” (2) the purpose,—“to keep it holy;” (3) which day,—“the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” (4) how to keep it holy,—“in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.” In order to keep it holy, all our work must be done in six days; and the seventh day we must do no work; this includes our son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, cattle, and stranger, and whoever is within our gates. The second grand division gives the reason we should keep it holy,—to keep in memory that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day;” and because he rested on the seventh day, “the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Thus the Sabbath becomes a memorial of all that God did during the six days. It is to keep in memory God’s creative power, as shown in what he did; for “he hath made his wonderful works to be remembered.” How many of his works?—All that he made in six days. Ps. 111:4. The apostle Paul gives a definite reason why the works should be remembered. The things that are made declare the invisible things of him since the creation of the world, even his everlasting power and divinity. See Rom. 1:20. The Sabbath calls our thoughts to God, our Creator, through nature, or the works of creation. The work of each day of the creation week was good, even when viewed apart by itself; and it had a relation to what was done on other days: and this relation, as well as the fact of creation, was brought to remembrance by the Sabbath. It was when all was completed, and “everything that he had made” sustained a proper relation to all other things, that the Lord pronounced it “VERY GOOD.” What did the Lord create the first day?—“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Gen. 1:3–5. Light was created on the first day; and it divided the day from the night. Had the sun never been created, there would have been day and night. Day and night were not dependent upon the sun; for there were three days and three nights before the sun was created. The sun was not the light. “The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun.” Ps. 74:16. God made the “lights in the firmament of the heaven” for six purposes: (1) For light-bearers; (2) to divide the day from the night; (3) for signs; (4) for seasons; (5) for days; (6) for years. God made nothing simply for itself. Only the selfish heart of man exists for itself alone. “The sun sheds light to gladden a thousand worlds.” “The Lord made two great light-bearers, the greater light-bearer to govern the day, and the lesser light-bearer to govern the night, together with the stars; and God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth through the day and through the night, to separate between the light and the darkness.”—Spurrell’s Translation. The different purposes for which God created the sun, the moon, and the stars are thus shown in these verses. After God had created the light, he said, “It is good.” After the sun and moon and stars had been created to become God’s light-bearers, “God saw that it was good.” The sun became a servant to the light. The fourth commandment, which is to keep in memory this work, points, through the first day of creation, to the Creator of the light, rather than to the sun, as the source of light. The sun was a secondary matter. It recognizes the Creator in the light. It is thus that the fourth commandment points directly back to the first day of creation as a memorial of the power of God in creating light. This gives no place for sun worship in any form; for the sun is not the light. As there is no form in the light visible to the naked eye, men can not worship it in the form of an idol; and if they had always kept the Sabbath as a memorial of creation, they would have kept in mind the fact that light existed three days before the sun was created, and would have always worshiped God, the Creator of the light, instead of the sun, the servant of the light. This would exclude all forms of idolatry representing sun worship. In the restitution of the Sabbath, the mind is carried to the Creator of light, who by his word brought into existence that which testified of his character—to him “who commanded, and it stood fast.” Thus the truth brought out by the three angels’ messages carries the mind directly back to the Sabbath commandment and its original design, the commemoration of the mighty works of creation. Everything that reminds us of the sun, like the “sun’s day,” is excluded. The teaching of the Sabbath reform is in the resetting of the gospel truths by the three angels’ messages. Those who keep God’s commandments will regard the Creator of the light, rather than any memorial of sun worship. S. N. H.