THE LAW FOR SUNDAY by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 15, 1877

THE LAW FOR SUNDAY.

By Uriah Smith

We have long waited for some man to appear who had the temerity to affirm that there was a law in the New Testament for the observance of Sunday. This has been a trying desideratum for the Sunday advocates. We have reminded them of the principle laid down by the apostles that law must lie back of all obligation. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” Sin is not imputed when there is no law. And “Where no law is there is no transgression.” 1 John 3:4; Rom. 3:20; 5:13; 4:15. We have urged them, in view of these plain declarations, to show us what measure of guilt we incurred, and what sin could be imputed to us for not regarding the first day of the week as a sacred rest-day, since there was no law enjoining such a duty. And yet on an issue so plain, and a point so important, they try to dodge the conclusion, generally confessing that there is no law, and then endeavoring to bolster up their bodiless and headless theory by the intensely absurd declaration that there is something just as good as law!

This, however, does not seem to satisfy one Eld. H. Exley, of Iowa; and more daring than his colleagues, he comes out in the Record and Evangelist of Feb. 22, 1877, and faces the issue as follows:—

“Is the first day of the week commanded? The answer to this question is most unhesitatingly and emphatically given in the affirmative. The Sabbath under the law was not really more sacredly set apart from the rest of the week, than has the first day of the week the divine sanction and the divine command resting upon it.”

The “Sabbath under the law” was sacredly set apart by a voice from the Most High, which shook the earth, and it was written in the most explicit terms by his finger on tables of stone. According to Mr. E., the first day of the week has been just as explicitly set apart. Will he give us the occasion? the circumstances? the reason? the words? We have always supposed a law or a commandment must be expressed in some words; that a Sabbatic institution must be founded by the rest of some divine being upon the day. But when did any divine being rest upon the first day of the week? Where is the record of any blessing or sanctification of the day? Where is the word Sabbath used in connection with it? Where is there any law for refraining from labor upon it, or in any manner enjoining it as a sacred day? All this Mr. E. boldly affirms pertains to the first day of the week. How does he show it?

We wade through a whole column of pointless declarations aimed at nothing and hitting the mark splendidly, when the Elder reaches Troas, and makes his first stand for a Sunday law. Respecting the disciples’ coming together at this time on the first day of the week to break bread, Acts 20:7, he makes these assertions:—

“It was their custom, their constant habit, and they did it under apostolic instruction.”

We challenge him to prove any one of these assertions. There is nothing to show that it was their custom. There is no record of any other religious meeting on the first day of the week in all the New Testament. How, then, in the name of logic, does he prove a “constant habit.” As to “apostolic instruction,” the apostles have not left on record the first iota of instruction for such a practice. How, then, does it happen that Mr. E. is so much wiser than the New Testament? It was simply an incidental meeting, “the disciples having come together” as Paul was to depart on the morrow. But he was there the Sunday before this. Why is no mention made of that?

The great fact, however, to be looked at on this occasion is that this meeting was in the evening of the day, which, according to Bible reckoning, was the first part of the day, corresponding to what is now Saturday night. See all respectable authorities upon this point. The daylight following that meeting would of course be Sunday; and when that daylight dawned upon them, Paul started off upon his long journey to Jerusalem. He gave the light part of the day, beyond all contradiction, to secular business. If his meeting on the first part of the day gave it any sacredness, his journey on the last part took that sacredness all away from it.

But what were Paul’s companions doing meanwhile? The record is that they went before to ship. That is, while Paul was remaining behind, preaching to the disciples, the rest of his company were taking the ship round to Assos. Whoever will look at these places on the map will readily understand these movements of the apostles. To go from Troas to Assos by ship was to go round a long promontory which jutted out into the Aegean Sea. This would take much more time than to go across the base of the promontory from Troas to Assos on foot. But the vessel had to be taken round. So the others set out upon this duty, Paul remaining to hold another meeting, then intending to go across on foot and meet them the next day at Assos, which he did, as the record states. Therefore, while Paul was preaching, the rest of his company were out upon the sea working as sailors work, propelling their vessel forward, tacking, trimming their sails, perhaps rowing with all their strength, at any rate, doing anything but enjoying a day of rest and keeping a Sabbath. If Paul was making, or even sanctioning, a first-day Sabbath at Troas, what were these others doing?

We imagine, if some zealous modern Sunday-keeper had been there when the disciples started off with their ship, we should have seen him rushing up-stairs to where Paul was preaching, and shouting, “Paul! Paul! these vagabonds, Luke and your other companions, are sailing off with their ship on this holy day. While you are here enforcing the first-day Sabbath, as explicitly as God gave the seventh from Sinai, they are breaking your preaching all down by going off about their business! Call them back! Call them back!”

And we can imagine the apostle in calm dignity replying, “My excited friend, when did you break loose from heathenism? Sunday is a heathen, not a Christian institution. I have received nothing from the Lord concerning it. I am not here to keep or teach it, as a sacred day. The Sabbath is past, and now is the time to work. My companions are right in going off with the ship, and as soon as daylight comes, I am off myself, to meet them at Assos.”

If we are to infer anything from the meeting at Troas, that inference is in favor of the Sabbath. For Paul was five days sailing from Philippi to Troas, a distance which critics tell us would occupy about two days in fair weather. This shows that he must have been detained by adverse winds, or circumstances beyond his control, so that he did not reach Troas till the first day of the week. But he must have reached there early on that day; for he abode there seven days, as the record states, and was ready to leave Saturday night. The inference, therefore, is plainly this: that not reaching Troas till after the Sabbath, he tarried a whole week to spend a Sabbath with them; and as soon as the Sabbath was past, Luke and the others immediately started off with the ship, while Paul, by stopping and going across to Assos on foot, could, as already explained, enjoy a few more hours’ intercourse with the disciples there.

But whatever its bearing on the Sabbath, this instance shows unmistakably that Paul regarded Sunday as only a secular day. His example explicitly teaches this; while, as for precept, the record says nothing of that one way or the other. It is time the people were informed upon these points, so that ministers should come to feel that the common intelligence of their hearers would hold them to a strict account for such palpable contradictions of the sacred record, and such abuse of logic, and that they could not pursue a course like this, without incurring the disgrace which justly belongs thereto. Other points will be noticed next week. U. S.