The Christian Sabbath by A. S. Hutchins

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 18, 1875

The Christian Sabbath.

By A. S. Hutchins

October 17, I listened to a sermon at Essex Junction, in vindication of the “Christian Sabbath,” delivered by the Methodist minister who preaches in this place. Considering the ability of the speaker, and his familiarity with our views on the Sabbath question, he certainly had the advantage of many who oppose us on this subject. The Sabbath question had been thoroughly investigated, the arguments from the word of God sustaining this ancient institution presented, and the objections to it candidly examined and answered by Eld. D. M. Canright, in a series of sermons delivered during our tent-meetings here.

These sermons by Eld. C. had awakened an interest in the subject and led to an investigation of it throughout this community, and deep and solemn conviction bore heavily upon the minds of many that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Bible, and that its observance is binding upon Christians. Furthermore, some ten or more have, in this section, commenced to hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment since our camp-meeting last August, some of whom formerly held an honorable connection with the Methodist church.

Now it seems but just and reasonable if the flock of this pastor were being led into pernicious errors in doctrine and practice, that at this late date, he should be prepared to terribly shake the foundations of Sabbatarians, expose and refute their unwholesome doctrines, and present a scriptural basis for the Christian Sabbath. For in the Judgment, the watchman must not only meet those over whom he is set to watch, but he must meet the record of his warnings, of the truths or errors he has taught his people.

The text to which our minds were directed, called by the speaker “a golden text,” reads: “And when these days are expired, it shall be, that upon the eighth day, and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings upon the altar, and your peace offerings; and I will accept you, saith the Lord God.” Eze. 43:27.

The help claimed from this text was that the term “eighth day,” fairly intimates a change of the Sabbath. The reader will observe that this vision of the prophet has reference to the temple, the altar, and the services connected therewith. The verse preceding the text reads, “Seven days shall they purge the altar and purify it; and they shall consecrate themselves.” And the eighth day in the text manifestly has allusion to the day succeeding these seven. And even if it could be proved that an eighth day can be forced into a cycle of seven days, and that that eighth day, so pressed into the cycle, should be, and is, constituted the first day of the seven, what any or all of these facts have to do in elevating the eighth day to the rank of the Christian Sabbath, theologians must explain; for the common people cannot comprehend it. And when explained and received, if received at all, it must be on the ground of the little boy’s great confidence in the declarations of his good mother, which led him to exclaim: “What my mother says is so, is so, if it is not so.”

Again, it was argued that the Sabbath might be changed from one day to another, and yet remain the Sabbath owned and approved of the Lord. This proposition was supported by reference to the fact that the church of God has passed through various forms of government, and passed from one dispensation to another, and yet remains the true church.

In connection with this, we were informed that the fourth commandment does not enjoin the observance of the seventh day, but of the Sabbath! “Why, then,” said he, “be such sticklers for a particular day?” We answer, Simply because the word of God enjoins a definite day, and that is the seventh day. “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” “But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; . . . wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

It was the day that God rested upon, the day that he blessed, the day that he commanded to be kept holy. Remove from the fourth commandment of the decalogue the day, and the Sabbath institution at once disappears. Again we were informed that we cannot determine the true seventh day. That there is no certainty of arriving at the seventh day by commencing the count of days on Sunday more than by commencing the count on Monday.

Yet, it was affirmed that as Christ lay in the grave on the seventh day, that day could no longer be a day of joy and gladness to his people, but that the day of his resurrection was one of triumphant joy, and that this day had from that time forward been regarded by Christians as the Sabbath. The propriety of such a change was maintained on the ground that if the physical creation needed a memorial, much more did the redemption of the world. Now admitting, as was claimed, that the work of redemption far surpasses that of the creation of the world, where in the Bible is there one intimation given that the first day should be kept sacred for this reason? This point demands attention from the advocates of this theory.

But to return to the statement that the seventh day has been lost while the first day has been religiously observed from the resurrection. How can this be true, while we learn from inspiration, of a portion at least of Christ’s followers, that the Sabbath on which he lay in the tomb they rested “according to the commandment”? Luke 23:56. Can the first day be traced with certainty back to the resurrection? Why, then, can not the seventh day?

But in the very heart of the argument to prove the Sabbath changed to the first day, and that day clothed with all the distinguishing honors of the Sabbatic institution, the speaker waived the tenor of his reasoning, and summoned to his aid those texts of Scripture appealed to by the advocates of the no-Sabbath or no-law theory, in proof of the abolition of the holy Sabbath. Laboring as though sustained now by correct premises and logical conclusions, God’s memorial of his creative works seemed to sink away and pass out of existence with the Jewish rites, ceremonies, and shadows.

That the ceremonial law, with its numerous burdensome rites, was “abolished,” taken out of the way, nailed to the cross, the Scriptures do abundantly prove. But if the Sabbath of the Lord was abolished, with the types and shadows of the former dispensation, it seems the height of incongruity to talk of a change of the Sabbath. An intelligent audience cannot comprehend this mode of reasoning. If the Sabbath has been changed by divine authority, we ask for the proof from the word of God. If it has been abolished, having served its time and object, why speak of it as still living and binding upon saint or sinner?

Mr. Webster defines abolished to mean “annulled;” “repealed;” “abrogated, or destroyed.” Abolition, he defines, “utter destruction; as the abolition of laws, decrees, ordinances, rites, customs, debts, &c.” This morning I put this question to a very intelligent lawyer: If at the next session of our legislature some one of our statute laws should be repealed, could we with propriety speak of that law as having been changed? His answer was, “No, sir; a law that is repealed, is dead.”

I think the candid reader cannot fail to see that our friend in maintaining the abolition of the Sabbath, completely nullified his claim for its change to the Christian Sabbath. The Bible Sabbath, like its twin sister, marriage, comes down to us from the glory of Eden, before the fall of man; and on the earth made new, and “full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” it will be honored and observed, by the saved of all “nations, and kindreds, and people.”

Now, if it be claimed that under this dispensation another day is to be kept from that blessed and sanctified in the beginning, with another reason for its observance, to the advocates of this theory, we submit the following questions:— 1. Where and when was the Sabbath changed from the seventh to the first day? 2. Who made the change, and where is the record of it? 3. Why was this change made? 4. When, where, and by whom was the first day blessed and sanctified, so that it is now holy time? 5. Where is there one blessing pronounced upon Christians for observing the first day as the Sabbath, or one curse threatened for not keeping it holy, or one intimation given that man stands condemned as a sinner in the sight of God for its non-observance? “For where no law is, there is no transgression.” Rom. 4:15. “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Rom. 5:13. We do not ask for inferences in settling such important questions, nor a claim for apostolic example unaccompanied by plain precept. We want as direct and positive evidence for the change of the Sabbath to the first day, as we have of the institution of the Sabbath in the beginning. And we ask, If by divine authority the Sabbath has been changed, what event now commemorates God’s creative works, as does the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, by which his “eternal power and Godhead,” are made known?

A. S. HUTCHINS.

Irasburgh, Vt.