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A MAN IN A MAZE

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 23, 1876

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 48, No. 21.

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A MAN IN A MAZE.

By C. W. S.

“Editors Review and Herald, Dear Sirs: I have seen, at various times, articles in your paper, which I read every week, advocating an entirely different doctrine from the one I was brought up to believe. You say, for one of the points of difference, that I have been keeping the wrong day on which to worship, and rest from the labors of the week. That, my dear sirs, is a very bold assertion, unless you have an abundance of proof on your side. I see by the discussion in Kansas, in paper No. 17, Vol. 48, that you bound the opposite party by strict rules to the Bible. Now then, I ask you to prove by the Bible that the Sabbath was ever changed. If you can find where the Sabbath was changed in the Bible, you are all right, if not, all wrong. Proof is what I want, from the Bible, not from history; for if you allow no history on one side, you must discard it on the other. I am respectfully yours,”
“H. T. Ketchum.
“Forest, Livingston Co., Ill.”
Our friend Ketchum asks us to prove from the Bible that the Sabbath was ever changed.
We are very happy to admit that we cannot do it; and we state further that we don’t think anybody else can do it either.
He says, “If you can find where the Sabbath was changed in the Bible, you are all right; if not, all wrong.”
Our friend seems to be perplexed. The fact is, our opponents have been laboring for a quarter of a century to “find where the Sabbath was changed in the Bible;” but they have never found it. It is not there. If it were to be found, we should then be “all wrong.”
We state for the information of our friend that we think the Sabbath has never been changed. It was instituted at creation. On the seventh day, God rested from all his work which he had created and made. After resting upon the seventh day, God blessed it. It is a blessed rest-day. He then sanctified it. To sanctify is to set apart to a holy or religious use. “The Sabbath was made for man,” our Saviour says. Then God set it apart for man’s use. Man was created the day before the Sabbath, and was present at the dedication of the Sabbath. It could have been sanctified, set apart for his use, for him to use in a holy, religious manner, in only one way, and that was this: God must have informed Adam and Eve, the representatives of the race, at the close of the first Sabbath, that they might do their work upon the next six days, but that when the seventh should come, they should remember that it was blessed, that it was his rest-day, and that they should not do any of their work thereon; and that as often as the seventh day should come, they should remember it to keep it holy. This is the only way it could be set apart. God could not set it apart without telling man; for if man did not know it he would use it just the same as the other days, and in that case it would not be set apart, would it?
Pass down to the time when God had selected Abraham from a wicked world, and raised up a nation to be his peculiar people. The time came when he would impress them more deeply with their obligation to obey him. He spoke his moral law with a voice that they all heard. He wrote it upon stone, that the people might be taught it. Ex. 24:12. He designed that his people should become better acquainted with his law by making it a matter of study. In that law he says, “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.” Ex. 20:8, 9.
Remember. God was not instituting some new thing. He commenced by commanding them to remember something that they already knew,—“the Sabbath of the Lord,” the Lord’s day, “the seventh day,” which he sanctified at creation. His following words make this more clear: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore [for that reason] the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it [set it apart for holy or religious use].” This tells when the seventh day was sanctified,—after God had worked six days and rested upon the seventh. It refers to the very act recorded in Gen. 2:2, 3, and shows that the seventh day was hallowed way back there.
Some claim that the Sabbath was not binding upon anybody till after the giving of the law at Sinai; but this idea is thus shown to be false. We briefly state the argument again: In speaking the Sabbath law at Sinai, God said that he made all things in six days, and rested on the seventh; and that for that reason he hallowed the seventh day. This working, this resting, and this sanctifying, are all recorded in Gen. 1 and 2 as having taken place twenty-five hundred years before; and that sanctifying consisted in God’s informing man that the seventh day was God’s holy day, and in commanding him to use it in a holy and religious manner.
Now we agree with our friend, that this holy Sabbath of the Lord has never been changed. God claims it as his holy day. Isa. 58:13. The holy women “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment,” which shows it had not been changed then. The prophet on the Isle of Patmos recognized the Lord’s day long years after the crucifixion. Rev. 1:10. As the seventh day is the only one the Lord has ever called his day, the Sabbath had not been changed in the last days of the apostles. In the last chapter in the Bible is recorded the Saviour’s benediction upon those who do God’s commandments, and his assurance that they shall “have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22:14. And the Lord says by the prophet Isaiah that the Sabbath shall be kept by the nations of the saved on the new earth forever. Isa. 66:22, 23.
So, my friend, we rest with you in the conclusion that it cannot be proved by the Bible that the Sabbath was ever changed. Now what about the statement that you are keeping the wrong day on which to worship? If you are keeping the first day of the week, are we not right in our “bold assertion”? You agree with us that the Bible authorizes no change. Where, then, does the observance of the first day of the week originate? Who is its author? God does not claim it. He never blessed it, never sanctified it, never commanded any one to observe it as a day of worship, and, finally, he never gave but one command concerning it, and that was a command to work upon it. “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work”—that includes the first day of the week; for he continues, “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
But the Bible does speak of a blasphemous power (Dan. 7:8, 21, 25) that should arise, and that should “think to change times and laws.” Dan. 7:25. All Protestants are agreed that that power is the Roman Catholic Church. The prophecy says that he shall think to change times and laws, indicating that this power should try to do something a little beyond a possibility for it to accomplish. The laws spoken of could not, therefore, be the laws of men or nations, for the Roman Church has borne despotic rule over the world, crowning and deposing kings, and putting her foot upon the neck of emperors.
The laws spoken of are God’s laws; and the times, his times. Has the Catholic power thought to change God’s laws? Yes. It has left out the second commandment, divided the tenth to make the number good, and changed the fourth so as to command the first day of the week instead of the seventh. For proof, read any Roman Catholic catechism. The Bible says that a certain power should do this, and the Catholic Church has done it; and it comes right forward and says it has.
Has it thought to change times? Yes. God’s time. God made the sun to rule the day; and he has said, “From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath.” Lev. 23:32. The day begins at sunset. “The evening and the morning were the first day,” “fourth day,” and “sixth day.” Gen. 1. God has fixed that matter, but this Roman power has thought to make the day begin at midnight. It has thought to change the time of commencing the day, the time of the Sabbath, and the laws of the Almighty; and in the exercise of this unwarranted power, it is unwittingly acknowledged by a large majority of the Protestant world. Are you willing to rest your observance of a day of worship on such authority?
The prophetic word has given us warning of this in advance. It has also indicated that there would, in the last days, be a rallying among God’s people to repair this breach that has been made in the law of God, and a grand reform upon the observance of God’s holy day. “Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in, if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable.”
The Catholic Church has made a breach in the law, taking out the fourth commandment and putting in one of her own; and she, with her Protestant daughters, has her feet on the Sabbath. Take it off, says the Lord, “and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.”
These, my friend, are some of the reasons why we observe the seventh day. We have many more. May the Lord bless you in your search for truth. With one or two testimonies we close.
“The law of the Lord is perfect.”—David.
“Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”—Jesus.
The seventh-day Sabbath is in that law, and no man can get it out. c. w. s.