Elder Preble’s New Light on the Change of the Sabbath.
By John Nevins Andrews
The readers of the Review will be interested in the following article on the subject of the Sabbath. Eld. Preble has further light to offer, which is greatly in advance of that which he presented in his book, entitled “The First-Day Sabbath.” In that work, only three changes of the Sabbath were argued. But this number is altogether too few. In fact, it is only a beginning. On examining the subject more carefully, he finds that there have been some three hundred or four hundred times as many changes of the Sabbath as he dared to claim when he published his book in 1867. Four years have wrought wonders in his mind on the question of the Sabbath. Now he declares that the Sabbath was changed annually during the entire period from Moses to Christ, with the exception of those years in which the passover fell on Friday, which could not have happened, on an average, oftener than once in seven years. After making the most liberal allowance for these years in which no change of the Sabbath occurred, we have even then more than one thousand changes of the Sabbath! This important discovery is given to the world in the Boston Herald of Nov. 10, 1871. Here is the article: “SATURDAY NOT THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.
“Editor of the Herald: That Saturday is not the Christian Sabbath appears from several considerations. The only ground on which it is claimed that Saturday is the day on which the Sabbath should be holden is because, as it is said, the Lord rested on the last day of the week, or on ‘the seventh day,’ and therefore he designated that man should observe every successive seventh day, or every Saturday, as we call it, in regular cycles from the creation of the world, onward to the end of probationary time! But such a claim is absolutely absurd, as will appear from the following considerations:— 1. The geographical condition of the earth forbids it; as all men, in all places, in different latitudes and longitudes, cannot observe the same specific portion of time; that is, the same period of twenty-four hours (as we now call a day) at the same time. This is impossible, whether we apply it to Saturday or Sunday. 2. But the Jews did not observe a regular succession or continued cycles of seventh-day Sabbaths only a year at a time, except when their ‘passover’ fell on what we now call Friday. Then in such years they would have two Sabbaths come together, or as some call it, ‘a double Sabbath.’ The reason was this: Ever after the Jews entered the land of Canaan, all their Sabbaths, six different kinds, and all their feasts, were regulated by the ‘moon’ and ‘a sheaf of the first fruits’ of their barley harvest. And the Jewish passover was always holden on the fourteenth day of the ‘moon,’ or on the fourteenth day of the ‘first month’ of their ecclesiastical or sacred year. And such sacred year must be regulated by the moon and barley harvest; for on the sixteenth day of this same first month, the Jews were obliged to obtain a sheaf of ripe barley to be waved by the priests before the Lord on that definite sixteenth day, or ‘on the morrow after the Sabbath,’ and on no other day or month. See Lev. 23. Thus we see that the beginning of the Jewish sacred year was irregular or indefinite as contrasted with our mode of computing time. For their barley harvest varied according as the seasons were early or late; consequently their passover varied in different years, so as sometimes to fall in the month we now call March, and sometimes in the month we call April. So much for the great irregularity for the beginning of the Jewish sacred year. Now for the weekly Sabbath or their septenary rest. To the Jews the first day of ‘the feast of unleavened bread,’ or ‘the fifteenth day of the same month,’ was to them their first weekly Sabbath in each sacred year. And as the passover must be holden ‘in the fourteenth day of the first month,’ the day following the passover was to the Jews their annual or first weekly Sabbath in that year, by which they were to be governed by cycles of sevens for the year then next following. Therefore if their passover should fall on the day we now call Friday, the next day following the passover would be the Sabbath to them both as regarded the Sabbath which would fall on the next day, which we call Saturday, according as they had been observing it through the preceding year, and also, according to ‘the first day of the feast of unleavened bread,’ being to them their first weekly Sabbath in each year, as above stated. Consequently in such years, that is, when the passover fell on Friday, then two Sabbaths, or ‘a double Sabbath,’ would come together, as was really the case at the time of our Saviour’s crucifixion; for he being crucified on a passover day and on a Friday, the next day following his crucifixion was the Sabbath, and ‘that Sabbath day was a high day’ (John 19:31), because two Sabbaths came together in that year, as that was one of those peculiar years in which a double Sabbath occurred. But if their passover fell on what we now call Saturday, as was sometimes the case, then their first weekly Sabbath for that year would fall on what we call Sunday; and if their passover should fall on Sunday, then, in such a year, their first weekly Sabbath would fall on Monday; and so on through all the other days of the week. Thus it clearly appears that the Jews never did keep continued cycles of ‘seventh-day Sabbaths,’ while they were governed by the moon or lunar months. Therefore, all holy days, new moons, and Sabbath days, were to the Jews ‘a shadow of things to come; but the body was of Christ.’ In this, then, the Christian has great advantage over the Jew in observing the Sabbath. For since the resurrection of Christ, the Christian has been governed by unvarying solar time instead of the Jewish varying lunar time. And so Christians have kept regular cycles of ‘seventh-day Sabbaths’ ever since the resurrection of our Saviour. This proves the advantage of the Christian over the Jew. For the Jews were compelled to grope their way through the glimmering light of the shadowy moon until the gospel dispensation. But Christians have enjoyed the clear light of the ‘sun’ instead of the ‘moon,’ having the advantage of solar time, instead of lunar. The Lord wisely instituted the Sabbath at the creation of the world for the benefit of man. And our Saviour sanctioned it by saying: ‘The Sabbath was made for man.’ Not for the Jew only, as some would say, but ‘for man’—for all mankind. The reason was this: The Lord knew that man would sin, and, as a consequence, our race, and also the earth, would fall under the ‘curse,’ and thus remain for six thousand years. Then the ‘groaning creation’ would be made free from the curse, and the great Sabbath of rest would begin where the six thousand years of the ‘curse’ would end. Now, as the curse that was to fall upon man for his transgressions was to result in his tilling the ground—and in the sweat of his face he must gain his bread—the Lord graciously provided that man and beast should labor but ‘six days’ only, before resting ‘the seventh day’ following those six days of toil, pain, and death. And then the six days of toil, pain, and death are a type of the six thousand years of the curse; and the seventh day of ‘rest’ is a type of the seventh thousand years of rest; as it is said: ‘There remaineth a rest [or keeping of a Sabbath, margin] to the people of God.’ Heb. 4:9. And so it again appears that the Jews being obliged to submit to the great irregularities arising from their mode of computing time by lunar months, and consequently a change of their weekly Sabbath to different days of the week, in nearly every year of their history, they could not observe this type with such beautiful harmony as Christians can. For since the resurrection of Christ, Christians have observed, without the least interruption, regular cycles of seventh-day Sabbaths. Each week Christians are acting over the type of the six thousand years of toil and pain; and also of the ‘rest’ which is to follow. And those who observe Sunday for their ‘rest day,’ or Sabbath, are no more heathen for so doing than those who observe Saturday. Those who observe Sunday for the Sabbath are just as truly observing the definite seventh day for the Sabbath as those who keep Saturday, if we only look from the right standpoint. What are we called on to ‘remember’? Why, remember and do just as the Lord did. He labored ‘six days,’ and only six, in creating this world, and then rested the ‘seventh day’ which followed those six days of labor. And this is what is required by the fourth commandment of the decalogue—‘Six days shalt thou labor’—just as the Lord did, and the seventh day, the day following such six days of labor, is the Sabbath. And thus we see that Christians, who commence their six days of labor on Monday, and end them on Saturday, and then ‘rest,’ as the Lord commanded, on Sunday, the seventh day after they have labored six, are keeping just as definite a seventh-day Sabbath as those who commence their six days labor on Sunday and end them on Friday. And so we come to this conclusion, that the Jewish seventh day, which, according to their mode of computing time, might fall on any day of the week, has been ‘done away’ as a ‘shadow’ of the past! But the Christian seventh day, which falls on Sunday, is the true Christian Sabbath which is binding upon all those who would ‘keep the commandments of God.’” T. M. Preble. In the same paper of Nov. 16, appeared the following reply:— “Editor of the Herald: In the People’s Column of your issue of Friday, T. M. Preble undertakes to show that Saturday is not the Christian Sabbath, from two considerations, which, with your permission, I will briefly notice:— 1. ‘The geographical condition of the earth forbids it.’ Why this claim is urged in this connection, or in favor of Sunday over the seventh day, we cannot conceive. Is not the world as round on the first day of the week as on the seventh? If the shape of the earth militates against the observance of the seventh day, it operates equally against any day. But seriously, does it affect the question at all? The commandment enjoins the observance of ‘the seventh day,’ and do not the inhabitants of all this round world have a seventh day to each of their weeks? We are not required to keep the same definite twenty-four hours all at the same time, but the seventh day as it comes to us, and is marked off by God’s great time-keeper, the sun. 2. If we correctly understand his second proposition, he makes an effort to prove that the Sabbath in the Jewish age was not a regularly consecutive weekly institution, but was shifted from one day of the week to another each year, because ‘governed by the moon.’ The presentation of such a claim as this, in the face of all reason and history, we are not sufficiently ‘governed by the moon’ to indorse. Indeed, it would seem that little less than lunacy would dictate such a proposition. This claim is based on the irregularity of the Jewish year, and of the annual Sabbaths. But the reader will please not confound the annual or ceremonial Sabbaths with the weekly Sabbath of the fourth commandment. The feasts of the Jews were moveable so far as the days of the week were concerned, while the Sabbath of the Lord was fixed, always occurring on the seventh day of the week, and not in the least affected by the ceremonial institutions. Nor should it be classed with them; for, as your correspondent truly remarks, they were ‘a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.’ All the shadows that pointed to Christ were abolished at his death; and if the weekly institution was one of them, then it also was swept away (not changed to another day); and if so the fourth commandment must have been abolished by the death of our Saviour, a conclusion which none but Antinomians are ready to accept. If the seventh day is in any sense a shadow or type, it must be, as your correspondent asserts, as typical of the seventh thousand years of rest, after six thousand years of toil and the existence of the curse. But who ever heard of a type’s ceasing before it reaches its antitype—of a shadow’s stopping short of the substance which casts the shadow? If, therefore, the seventh day be a shadow of the seventh millennium, it must continue, at least, until that period commences. But the Sabbath is not a shadow. It is a memorial, instituted to memorialize the great Creator’s work in forming the heavens and the earth, and hence must be kept as he has commanded. We cannot celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence by observing the twenty-fifth of December; nor can we celebrate the Creator’s rest day on any other day than the one on which he rested. ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath [or rest] of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work,’ &c. It is not any seventh day after six days of labor, but the seventh day, on which God rested. Hence, if it has been ‘done away,’ the commandment enjoining it must have also been abolished; for it could not enjoin the definite seventh day in the Jewish age, under a death penalty, and then, with no verbal change, enjoin another day in this dispensation. If the seventh day was abolished at the cross, we now have no Sabbath at all, and our Saviour, instead of saying, ‘The Sabbath was made for man,’ should have said, ‘The Sabbath was made for the Jews.’ If the first day of the week is now the Sabbath, will some one please point to the law which condemns me for laboring on that day? ‘Where there is no law there is no transgression;’ and in the absence of a divine commandment for its observance, we must cling to the original day for which there is a definite, unqualified commandment, which we will do well to heed instead of ‘taking for doctrine the traditions of men.’ W. C. G.”