WHICH DAY IS THE SABBATH?
By Jas. Harding
“There is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things.” 1 Cor. 8:6. From him all beings derive their existence. He who creates and upholds, has the right to govern and control. Hence it is that he is represented in Scripture as the Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. James 4:12. Existence being derived from the benevolence of the Creator, all intelligent beings are amenable to his just government. Man, as being made by God to inhabit the earth, is alone capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and is therefore placed under the control of moral law. “God made man upright.” This at once presupposes a law to which he was conformed in his creation, as when anything is made according to rule, of necessity the rule itself is presupposed. Therefore this law was no other than the eternal, indispensable law of righteousness, observed in all points by the second Adam. This law is in opposition to the carnal mind, and yet, to some extent, observed among the pagans. For they, “having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” Rom. 2:14, 15. In a word, this law was afterward put in tangible form on two tables of stone, in ten precepts, and was called by Moses a law and commandments. It was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, for the Israel of God, and is now to us known as the moral law. In Gen. 2:1–3, it is recorded that in six days God made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day God rested from all his work which he had created and made. And God sanctified and blessed the seventh day, because on it he had rested from all his work. Thus God gave to Adam, as the representative of the human race, a holy, sanctified day as a rest-day in memory of creation, because on that day the Lord rested and was refreshed. Ex. 31:17. Here it would be well to notice that because Jacob wrestled with God and prevailed (Gen. 32:28), he was called Israel; so Paul says that all who prevail with God, through faith in Christ, are Israelites, and heirs according to the promise. Eph. 2:12; Gal. 3:29. Therefore, whoever accepts of Christ in the covenant of promise, whether Jew or Gentile, belongs to the Israel of God. The lively oracles were given to the Israelites, because the Gentiles were idolaters, and not fit to receive them. Paul says, Rom. 9:4, “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.” The Israelites were not only commanded to keep the Sabbath for a perpetual covenant (Ex. 31:16), but they were to keep the Sabbath for an everlasting covenant. 1 Chron. 16:15, 17. It is not best to despise the new covenant on the ground that it was made with the Israelites, nor to despise God because he was called the God of Israel, nor to despise Jesus because he was a Jew; for indeed we find we have both a Jewish Saviour and a Jewish Bible, and our salvation is all of the Jews. John 4:22. We read in 2 Pet. 3:5, 7, 13, that when this earth is burned over, and all the works that are therein burned up, the new earth (Isa. 65:17) shall come forth in all its celestial beauty. Then the Israel of God,—in possession of immortality, which is eternal youth and beauty, enrobed in righteousness without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,—shall come to worship before the Lord every Sabbath day. Isa. 66:23. Men may celebrate just what day they please in memory of their birthday, but their birthday they can never change. Neither can the day be changed on which God rested, and which he stamped with his blessing, and gave to man as a test of obedience. Some claim that it does not matter which day we keep, if we only celebrate one day in seven. Our first parents tried that plan with the trees of the garden. One tree they did not eat of, but unhappily for the race they ate of the wrong tree. Just so, many are willing to keep a day, but are not willing to keep the seventh, as required. The reason they give is that the disciples came together to break bread on the first day of the week, Acts 20:7; but they fail to observe that as Paul was long preaching, the disciples did not break bread till next morning, or that they broke bread every day from house to house (Acts 2:46), in memory of Christ’s death. This had nothing to do with the Sabbath. It is claimed that because there were three thousand converted to God on the day of Pentecost, the first day of the week is the Sabbath day. It is also claimed that five thousand were converted to God under the preaching of Moody and Sankey, in St. Paul’s church in London, on Wednesday. Now, according to that principle of reasoning, why would not Wednesday be the Sabbath day? Reader, God will not be mocked. These things have no reference to the work of creation, of which the Sabbath day is a memorial. Ex. 31:17. When a will is left after the testator is dead, the heirs must accept of the will as it is, or prove that the testator was not in his right mind. Reader, which do you prefer? Will you accept the will as it is? Paul says, Heb. 9:16, 17, that a testament is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. As Christ’s heirs, we have the death of the testator. Will you now presume to change the will? Read the testator’s words, Heb. 10:9: “Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” As he has established the covenant and sealed it with his blood, let us see what it says. Heb. 8:10: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” Having written the law on their hearts, he took the cup, Matt. 26:27, 28, saying, “This is my blood of the new testament; drink ye all of it.” If you do not love the law of God, you have no right to drink of that cup, as you will thus be guilty of the death of Christ. The transgression of the law caused the death of the Son of God. By the law we are to be tested in the Judgment day, Rom. 2:12, 16, when God will judge the secrets of men’s hearts. Christ said he came not to destroy the law (Matt. 5:17), but to fulfill it, by meeting its claims for us; he came to raise us from under its curse, that we might be able to keep it. 1 John 2:4: “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Reader, remember that that law is sealed with the blood of Christ, so that if you trample it under foot, you trample on the blood of Christ, and are held as guilty as though you were the person that drove the nails into his body; 1 Cor. 11:27; and that law says the seventh day is the Sabbath. By breaking the first commandment, the Israelites would be guilty of breaking the covenant. Deut. 29:25. What is the difference between him that breaks the first commandment and him that breaks the fourth? Both break the covenant, and both are amenable to God for so doing. It is claimed that the law was changed, the priesthood being of the tribe of Levi, and our Lord coming of the tribe of Judah. Heb. 7:12. The reader can easily see that this has reference to the Levitical law, which was all typical of Christ, and which at his death was entirely abolished, being, as Paul says, nailed to the cross. But the moral law of ten commandments is made after the nature of God,—unchangeable,—and not a jot or tittle of it shall fail till Heaven and earth pass away; and any man that shall break one of the least of these commandments, and teach men so, shall be the least esteemed in the kingdom of Heaven. If any man take away any of the words of this book, Rev. 22:19, God shall take away his part out of the book of life; and the words, Deut. 5:22, of the law say the seventh day is the Sabbath. Lastly: the change in the Sabbath is the work of the beast which Daniel (7:25) saw in vision, which was to speak great words against the most high God, and think to change times and laws. The same beast is spoken of in Rev. 14:9; and all those who worship him by having his mark in their forehead or in their hands,—the forehead being the seat of the judgment, with which they approve the change, and the hands the instruments with which work is done on the seventh day, contrary to God’s law,—shall drink of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture. Rev. 14:10. But the saints are found keeping the law when Christ comes. Rev. 14:12.