p. 35 | WHY BOLSTER UP SUNDAY by S. P. Bollman

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1887

WHY BOLSTER UP SUNDAY.

By S. P. Bollman

Now that action is being taken in behalf of Sunday in so many ways, and by so many associations, and even by nations, the query arises, Why is so much legislation demanded? Why so many decisions of ecclesiastical bodies and philanthropic associations in regard to Sunday and its right to be regarded as the Sabbath—and now the only Sabbath of divine requirement? The obvious answer is, Sunday stands in pressing need of all these supports, and bolstering enactments, and resolutions, because the clear light of God's word shows it to be utterly without any sacredness and claim by divine appointment to be regarded as a holy day.

Having been brought into existence as a festival day, by human contrivance and concurrence and without even a shadow of divine appointment, Sunday has always needed special guarding and its supposed rights special protection to preserve anything like the semblance of that propriety, or dignity, which, according to Bible specifications, belongs, properly, to a Sabbath.

Especially has all this ado about Sunday been imperatively demanded, because starting with man's creation, and made for man (the race) stands the Lord's Sabbath, the seventh day, sanctified, made holy, by the Lord, the Creator himself; kept by the God-fearing, by Abraham and his seed, all along the ages; honored by Christ and his apostles; and destined, from its God-given origin, not only to endure through time "till Jesus comes," but to be transferred to the new earth, where as a memorial of God's creative work it will be observed parallel with the harmonious song of the redeemed throughout the ceaseless ages of an eternity of bliss.

Further, it is now generally conceded by those who take the Bible as their text-book, that the seventh day of the week is the true Bible Sabbath, God's holy Sabbath, made so by his own act as it came a holy day from his creative hand. There it stands in all its dignity and sacredness, the Sabbath of the Lord, in marked contrast with that man-made, and much bolstered institution, Sunday, the original "venerable day of the sun," which derived all its sacredness from heathen consecration.

"But," says the Sunday advocate, "did not Constantine make the day sacred by his edict in its favor?" Absurd! Who and what was Constantine, when he issued his famous edict in behalf of the venerable day of the sun? Nothing but a heathen sun worshiper. But again it is insisted "that councils and ecclesiastical assemblages, in great numbers and at various times, have consecrated and made holy Sunday, the first day of the week." Made holy a day which God has not made holy? Impossible! All ecclesiastical organizations combined, seconded by all combinations into which men have ever entered, can never make the first day of the week holy in the sense in which the seventh day, the Sabbath, is holy. It is God's prerogative alone to make holy as his Sabbath is holy. Men cannot make Sunday a holy sabbath, since God has not made it holy.

God has given the first day of the week with the five days following it in numerical order, to man for his use as secular days, and he has never altered this arrangement. "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." There it stands, distinctly and prominent, in all the warp and woof of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, whilst Sunday has no other recognition than simply the first day of the week.

Sunday as a holy day is then an impostor, claiming characteristics which, from the nature of the case, can never belong to it. Hand may join with hand, and nation co-operate with nation, to make Sunday the Lord's Sabbath, but it will be all in vain. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision."

S. P. BOLLMAN.