p. 72 | The Day of the Sabbath

Seventh-Day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 31, 1884

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 5

The Day of the Sabbath.

CAN WE KNOW IT?

THERE is scarcely another subject in the Bible which is made so plain as that of the Sabbath,—the day of the Creator’s rest, which he sanctified for man’s observance. Nothing concerning it is left uncertain or obscure. Every declaration of the Scriptures on that subject, whether it regards the day selected, the work commemorated, the sanctifying or setting apart for observance, the commandment, or the honor which God bestowed upon it, all is unmistakable in its import, if we walk by the old Protestant rule: “The Bible, and the Bible alone.”

But among the churches of this age, in current theology, there is no subject made more obscure; not another upon which there is such general agreement to ignore the plain words of God and substitute something else in their place, and yet such general disagreement as to the reason for their action. If we could call together a hundred representative men from all the churches of the land, and have them, each in turn, give their reason for keeping Sunday, it would be Babel reproduced! Each would contradict his neighbor, and all would agree only on one point, namely, that they would not keep the day indicated in the commandment of God.

Having noticed some of the positions taken by religious teachers on this question, we will now take a survey of the field as presented in the Bible. That there may be no possible chance to set aside the testimony by evasions in regard to loss of time, unknown changes, etc., we will divide the history of the world into three periods: 1. From creation to Moses; 2. From Moses to Christ; 3. From Christ to the present time.

1. When the Sabbath was made there was but one computation of time in the history of the world; that was the week of seven days. No other origin of the week can be given than that given in the first two chapters of Genesis. It was the week as counted by Jehovah, for man had then existed only a fraction of a week. The Sabbath was not counted as the seventh day of the month, or the seventh day of the year. It was not a day of rest coming every thirtieth day, or every three hundred and sixtieth day, but every seventh day. It stood related as to time only to the six days which preceded it.

And it was not man’s Sabbath, man’s rest, because it did not commemorate man’s work. It was the Sabbath of the Lord God. He rested upon that day “from all his work which God created and made.” It was founded on the work and the choice of God alone.

“And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” This word bless signifies to praise or exalt as well as to prosper. It indicates the delight which God took in his work and its memorial (Comp. Ex. 31: 17), and the honor which he bestowed upon it. “To sanctify means ‘to set apart to a sacred use.’” God separated it from the other days, reserving it for himself, to his glory, not to be used by man for his work, as were the other six. Of course he could not have sanctified it or set it apart, separated it from the other days, guarded it from desecration by common use, without giving Adam definite information as to how he was to regard it; how he should and how he should not use it. Com. Ex. 19: 12, 23, etc.

Genesis is a book of history, not of law. It gives valuable information concerning law and obligation, but only historically. That book shows that time was reckoned by weeks in the days of the patriarchs. The knowledge which Adam obtained in Eden by converse with the “Lord of the Sabbath,” could not have been forgotten before the days of Moses, for Adam himself lived more than one-third of the whole period. But were we to admit that the Sabbath was entirely lost during the first two thousand five hundred years of the world’s history, that would not leave the question of the day in any doubt since that time. But we have no such admission to make, for nobody claims such a thing.

But, can it be proved to a certainty that the seventh-day Sabbath, the rest-day of Jehovah, was known by Moses and the children of Israel? We raise the question to bring the matter forcibly to the mind of the reader, and that we may show how easily it may be answered in the affirmative. In Ex. 16 mention is made of the Sabbath to or of the Lord, and it is called the seventh day. The seventh day, and the Sabbath, were the only methods then known of designating the last day of the week. The days of the week were known only by their numbers; they had no names, except the seventh which was named the Sabbath, or “the day of the rest.” Any other seventh day but the seventh day of the week had to be specified, as the seventh day of the month. Either the seventh day, without any qualifying term, or the Sabbath, specifically pointed out the last day of the week.

2. But the matter is not left even with these facts known to the people. When God proclaimed his law in person, with his own voice, in the hearing of all the people, he renewed the commandment of the Sabbath with the other parts of the moral law. When he wrote the “ten words” upon the tables of stone with his own finger, he gave this precept, and identified the Sabbath which he commanded to Israel as the day of his rest which was blessed and sanctified, as in Gen. 2: 3. He said and he wrote, “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” and he commanded them to keep it holy. And he gave the reason in full, in the following words: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

Now divesting one’s self of all prejudice, and taking “the Bible, and the Bible alone,” would it be possible for any man to draw from these words of the Creator himself any conclusion but this: that the seventh-day Sabbath or rest-day which God commanded from Sinai, was the same day which he blessed and sanctified, as recorded in Gen. 2: 3. It is identified by every particular; and not one particular stated can be applied to any other day. And if any one yet doubts that it is the same day, let him consider and answer this question: If the original or creation Sabbath, the rest day of the Lord God, is not identified in Ex. 20, what language could God have used if he had intended to identify it? Will some doubter answer this without a cavil?

Here we will notice that the testimony of the Bible is uniform on the subject of the Sabbath. It knows but one day of the Sabbath. It never speaks of any other. The custom of calling different days the Sabbath, or of speaking of different weekly Sabbaths, never originated in the Bible; it was never derived from statements or facts found in the Bible. The patriarchal Sabbath; the Jewish Sabbath; the Christian Sabbath; as terms of distinction these are “the speech of Ashdod;” the Bible knows nothing of them. The rest-day of Jehovah, the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, is the one and only Sabbath of the holy Scriptures.

The blessing and sanctifying of the seventh day at creation were not the only acts of the Almighty to put honor upon his memorial rest-day. When he released his people from the house of bondage that they might serve him, Ex. 8: 1, and declared his holy law, obedience to which is the only true service and the proof and essence of love to him (1 John 5: 3), he wrought many miracles to attest his regard for his holy day, and to inspire respect and reverence for it in the hearts of his people.

(1) When the manna fell, which was by a miracle, it fell six days, but did not fall on the Sabbath. In this manner God again sanctified or separated his holy day from the other days and from secular uses.

(2) When the manna was kept over night it corrupted and became a mass of worms; but when it was kept over from the sixth day to the seventh it did not corrupt but remained good for food on the Sabbath. Without attempting to trace this point further, we find that, beside the commandment, and the rebukes frequently uttered, in the space of forty years the Lord wrought at least four thousand one hundred and sixty miracles, and all to put honor upon the seventh-day Sabbath! Can he have “the mind of the Lord” who casts reproach upon it and dishonors it? See Isa. 58: 13, 14. No other institution—nothing else ever committed to his creatures—has received so much honor from God as his holy day, the seventh-day Sabbath. And it pains us to write that no other institution which God ever gave to man has been the object of so much reproach and contempt. “An enemy hath done this.”

3. Very briefly we will now examine the testimony of the New Testament. Here we find frequent reference to “the Sabbath day,” without any explanation or qualification. It contains no intimation of any other but the old and well-known institution—the Sabbath of the Lord—the seventh day. A new Sabbath or a change of the Sabbath, is not even hinted at in its pages; there is not ground for a plausible inference in their favor. It has been asserted that the Jews lost the Sabbath when they went into Babylon. If so, is it not exceedingly strange that they knew it so well, and were so well agreed upon it, when they returned to Jerusalem? In the days of Ahasuerus (B. C. 510) the Jews were scattered in one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia, Est. 8: 9, and in the days of the preaching of the gospel, there were found in Jerusalem devout Jews out of every nation under heaven. Acts 2: 5. Yet there was not a shadow of disagreement among them in regard to the true day of the Sabbath. No; the Jews did not lose the Sabbath in going into Babylon, but it is very evident that many professed Christians of the present age have lost the Sabbath by going into Babylon! We respectfully invite them to come out of Babylon, and turn their faces toward Jerusalem, and they will have no difficulty in finding the Sabbath.

But against all cavils we are “thoroughly furnished” by the plain words of the New Testament. In this the Sabbath is as clearly identified as it is in the commandment of God given from Sinai.

(1) The Sabbath kept by the followers of Christ was kept “according to the commandment,” Luke 23: 54-56. But the commandment enjoins the seventh day—the identical day upon which God rested when he made the heavens and the earth; and which, for that reason he blessed and sanctified. They could not keep the commandment by keeping another day—a day upon which he did not rest, which he did not bless and sanctify, and which he never commanded anybody to keep.

(2) This Sabbath was identical with the Sabbath set apart at creation; it was the last day of the week. This is made sure, placed beyond the possibility of doubt, by the fact stated that it was immediately succeeded by the first day of the week. Matt. 28: 1; Luke 24: 1. The plea now set up by some that the day so called by the evangelists was not the first day of the week, but the original seventh day, is contrary to the harmonious testimony of both Testaments, and a long stride toward infidelity, inasmuch as it impeaches the veracity both of the evangelists, and of God himself in his commandments.

(3) No other day but this, the seventh day of the week, was recognized in the New Testament as the Sabbath. The apostle James in the council at Jerusalem, said that Moses was “read in the synagogues every Sabbath day.” Acts 15:21. But it is conceded by all that the Jews did not meet for worship in the synagogues on the first day of the week. Therefore the expression in Acts, “every Sabbath day,” does not include the first day of the week. Thus in the New Testament we have the seventh day clearly identified as the Sabbath, and the first day as clearly excluded from that title. And no other day than the seventh day was ever given the title of the Sabbath of the Lord, or the Lord’s day, in all the Scriptures. Taking “the Bible, and the Bible alone,” and we have the truth firmly established, that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” The first day is exalted to be the Sabbath by tradition, unnecessary inferences, and popular feeling, which collectively give expression to the carnal mind! Read Rom. 8:7.

4 We might say much to prove that the Sabbath has not been lost or changed since the time of Christ, but it is not necessary. One indisputable fact is sufficient. The record of eclipses before the beginning of the Christian era, and the calculation of the same by astronomers of the present day, prove positively that their week was the same as ours; that which was called the seventh day of the week then is called so now. Bishop Haven was right: there is indeed no reason to deny that the day which the Jews regard as the seventh day is the identical seventh day sanctified at creation.

And now, dear reader, what will you do with these truths—with God’s commandment? The time will come when you would give the world to stand in harmony with God’s commandments. Eccl. 12: 13, 14. Now you have the opportunity to choose; then you will not. Improve your time now.