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The Sabbath

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 24, 1875

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 1, No. 33.

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The Sabbath.

By J. D. Bandy

HOW IT IS KEPT IN THE SPIRIT.
As I was riding along the road the other day I fell into conversation with a book agent, and the Sabbath question came up. He said that the Sabbath was changed at Christ's resurrection, that the seventh day was kept until that time, and that since the resurrection of Christ, by keeping the first day in the letter we keep the seventh day in the spirit.
I asked him for one passage of scripture to prove the change. He said we were safe in following the apostles, and that they were assembled together on the first day of the week to celebrate Christ's resurrection. I called upon him for a Testament, and read to him John 20:19, the text to which he referred. He said "they had the doors shut for fear of the Jews." I told him that the disciples did not then believe that Christ had risen from the dead, and why should they be celebrating his resurrection if they did not believe that he had risen? "And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." Luke 24:11.
He next said that "redemption is greater than creation, and therefore we ought to keep the first day of the week." I asked him if the Lord's supper did not commemorate his sufferings and death, and, when a person was baptized, if they were not to rise to walk in newness of life as Christ arose from the dead.
As for the example of the apostles, I told him Paul's manner was to preach upon the Sabbath day. Acts 13:42-44. He said he sometimes preached upon Saturday. I then learned that he was a Presbyterian minister. I thought if the teachers in Israel have no better evidence than the above for their faith they are surely resting on a sandy foundation.
Instead of trusting in men let us search the Scriptures. Says Christ, "In them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they that testify of me." In them we read, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have all they that do his commandments." The wise man's "conclusion of the whole matter" was, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." Eccl. 12:13. May both reader and writer be found keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ, that we may enter into life.
J. D. BANDY.