A Gradual Change by H. A. St. John

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 9, 1872

A Gradual Change.

By H. A. St. John

NOT unfrequently the advocates for Sunday tell us that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week by Christ and his apostles. In other words, the position is very common, that the change was a gradual one, commenced by Christ and completed by the apostles, covering a period of about seventy years from the resurrection of Christ to the death of the last apostle. Now this argument, if indeed it may be called such, is a virtual admission of at least two things; first, that the so-called Christian Sabbath has neither divine command nor sanction in the word of God; and second, that it has got its foothold in the world in the same manner as every false doctrine of tradition extant. Gradually and silently have all the corrupting errors of the papacy worked their way up to their present popular position in the professed Christian world.

But let us consider this idea of a gradual change of the Sabbath. To us it appears extremely absurd to talk about gradually changing a moral precept, a plain and unequivocal divine command. Now in order to be understood we will suppose as above stated, that the Sabbath was gradually changed within a period of seventy years, commencing with the resurrection of Christ. Then

it would follow that it was just a little right, hardly excusable, to keep the first day of the week on which our Saviour rose from the dead, because the gradual change, as is claimed, had then but just commenced. So then when the next seventh day arrived, it was just a little wrong to keep it according to the commandment, and when the next first day came it was still but just a little right to keep it, yet a little more right than it was the Sunday previous. Thus the matter would go on, it gradually becoming less right to keep the seventh day, and more right to keep the first day, till the period allowed for the change was half expired, when, obviously, it would be half right and half wrong to keep either day. And from that time forward the scale began to turn in favor of Sunday, till the Bible record closed, when, as is supposed, the Christian Sabbath was fully established. Now such a change is not only manifestly absurd, but exceedingly preposterous. No one that will look the subject fairly in the face can really believe it.

If God’s blessing was ever removed from the seventh day at all, it was done at a definite point of time; if Sunday is the Christian Sabbath it became such all at once, by divine command. But no such command is to be found in the sacred writings. Nowhere are we informed by any inspired writer that God has ever removed his blessing or sanctification from the seventh day. It does, therefore, still remain the only blessed, sanctified Sabbath of the Lord. Its place in the bosom of the great constitution of Heaven, like the heart in the constitution of man, argues its great importance in the divine economy. Reader, do you magnify the fourth commandment?

H. A. ST. JOHN.