Your ShelfYour Projects

The Sabbath—the Day

2%

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 21, 1878

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 12.

Read the full edition

The Sabbath—the Day.

By Elder W. M. Healey

[THE California Christian Advocate of February 28, 1878, in its editorial columns contained an article entitled, The Sabbath—the Day.
The article, coming from so high a source among the Methodists, would be expected to contain the best arguments of that large and influential body upon this important question. Elder W. M. Healey was requested to review the same. We publish the article in full and its review, as given by Elder Healey in the Seventh-day Adventist church, Oakland, Cal., March 11 and 12, 1878.]
“Some friend has sent us a paper published in Oakland, entitled Notes of Warning. We are requested to note its contents. It is a publication of the 'Seventh-day Adventists.' It contains nothing new, and no argument which has not been answered a thousand times. We are reminded of what the Saviour said about 'making broad the phylacteries' and the 'tithing of mint, cummin and anise' while more important matters are neglected.”
We are glad the Notes of Warning is doing its work, and reminding some, of the Saviour's words, about "tithing of mint, cummin and anise," "while neglecting the more important matters." Why did not the Advocate quote the remainder of the sentence, and let us know that those "important matters" were "the weightier matters of the law?" Matt. 23:23. To which the Notes of Warning is calling special attention.
“The Hebrew word Sabbath signifies a rest—that is all of it. The world was created in six days, and the seventh was hallowed as a day of rest. This is the Bible record which we all accept. But the days of creation were indefinite periods. The ablest Christian scholars accept the records of the book of nature as a divine revelation of God, which demonstrates the great antiquity of the earth—which existed untold centuries before man lived upon its surface. Nor does this view conflict with the record of Moses. We cannot ignore the axioms of science, hence we are required to change our interpretation of the record—but in doing so we do not surrender one jot or title of the written word. Science is the sure handmaid of true religion.
“Then, if the first six days of the world's history were indefinite periods, what must the seventh day be? Not a single revolution of the globe on its axis. To note these facts, which no man of respectable scholarship will attempt to controvert, fully settles the question so far as the first seven days are concerned; and, hence, renders it impossible to fix the initial point, hour, or day, from which to count the first week.”
It is true, God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh, and hallowed it. Consecrated it to a sacred use. Did God consecrate an indefinite period of time? So says the Advocate. For it says the days of creation week were long indefinite periods of time. It may be well to call to mind the fact, that scientific men are constantly changing their views in regard to the earth. They once held that it was flat and stationary, and a man who would have dared to contradict either of those positions, would have been thought by them to have "no respectable scholarship."
Science does not prove, but assumes, the age of the world. The whole argument is built on the assumption that present changes and appearances are a certain index to all of its past history. We believe God created the earth as he did the first man, full grown. We love true science, but think more of the plain word of God, than we do of a scientific assumption. We are not ready to change the Word, to suit the ever-changing theories of man. But would remember Paul's advice to Timothy to avoid "oppositions of science falsely so called." 1 Tim. 6:20. Each of the six working days at creation are expressly said to be composed of "the evening and the morning." These were also called the day and the night. Gen. 1. In verses 14–18 we learn, that the day and night were measured by the two great lights, that God made for that purpose. Jeromiah says these were the sun and moon. Jeremiah 31:35. Man was created sufficiently early on the sixth day, to name all the animals, be put to sleep, have a rib extracted and the woman made. Then he lives over all the seventh day. According to the Advocate, he must have been an old man at the close of that long "indefinite period of time." But the record is that he raised several children after this, and when Seth was born, Adam was only one hundred and thirty years old. Gen. 5:3. Verses 4–5 states that he lived eight hundred years longer, "And all the days of Adam were nine hundred and thirty years." Strange that the Christian will thus leave the plain word of God and seek another guide, thinking that they are advancing in wisdom. We are reminded of a little anecdote. A gentleman with a negro servant was out at sea in a small boat. The gentleman directed the servant to take the wheel, and steer the boat directly toward the north star, while he lay down for a nap. The servant being weary, soon fell asleep, and in the meantime, the wind arose and blew the boat arbund, so that it was drifting directly away from the north star. When the servant awoke and seeing the star over the stern of the boat, called loudly to his master, "WAKE UP, MASSA! WAKE UP! Give me another star, I'se gone away past dat one!" So the man who turns from God's written word, the Bible, and seeks another guide, is but self-deceived, and has turned his back upon the true star of hope, God's holy word.
“The duty enjoined or, rather, indicated, is to set apart one-seventh portion of our time for rest. Our physical health, as well as moral considerations, requires this amount of rest, and the Hebrew word Sabbath signifies rest and nothing more. There is reason in the requirement, but no reason whatever for keeping Saturday rather than Sunday, if it were even possible to frame a calendar so that all the inhabitants of the earth should rest at the same time. But to observe as holy the same hours of time in all parts of the world is not possible nor is it attempted. Traveling east or west, every fifteen degrees of longitude makes a difference of one hour of time. The devout Christian in New York is keeping holy the Sabbath some three hours and a half before we cease our secular labors. To simply call the time the seventh day does not make it such, nor add to its sanctity. If the Adventists' assumption were correct, that God had fixed the starting point, from which six diurnal revolutions of the earth should define the secular week, and the seventh the rest, and that period of time only could be regarded as holy—then, not a man living who is removed one degree of longitude from the ancient Eden has ever kept holy the Sabbath, except by accident. This is clear to the dullest intellect.”
In the above we are not told what it is that enjoins, or indicates our duty, but presume reference is had to the fourth commandment of the decalogue. But a very liberal view is taken of the duty itself, all there is of it is to set apart one seventh portion of our time for rest. Thus, one man may set apart every seventh hour, another every seventh day, another every seventh week, and still another every seventh month. This would give farmers and mechanics a chance to have a rest for a month in the winter season, and then entitle them to six months for steady labor, they having given their one-seventh portion of time.
But the seventh day we are told cannot be kept because time varies so. In New York they begin the Sabbath three and one-half hours before we do here. Did God not know time varied, when he said, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work, etc.?" But what is the cause of this variation of time? It is simply the day passing round the earth, produced by the revolution of the earth upon its axis, and so presenting its surface to the sun at the rate of fifteen degrees of longitude each hour, or about one thousand miles at the equator.
Let us suppose that in the United States there is to be a National election. The law specifies that it must be on the second day of November. Polls to be opened at nine o'clock, A. M., and closed at sunset. In New York the polls are open, and voting is going on for three hours and a half before a single ballot is cast in San Francisco. Sun sets in New York—polls are closed, but in San Francisco they are kept open three and one-half hours longer. Now suppose some learned man claims the election illegal, because not held in San Francisco at the same time it is in New York, and the law required it to be on the same day. Would not he be laughed at, and told that it was on the same day; that the day travels around the globe, and reaches San Francisco about three and one-half hours later than it does New York?
The poet has said:—
“He's but a dunce, Who thinks the day begins All round at once.”
God never required all men to keep the same moments of time,but the seventh day, and that to be kept when it gets to us; which is known by the setting sun. This being so easily comprehended, we will leave this objection to the “dullest intellect,” for to it the Advocate says it is clear, and to such we think it properly belongs.
“The requirement evidently is to keep as a sacred rest one-seventh portion of time; this only is practicable, and this meets the fullest demand of reason and of the word. No matter what day is made the first for labor, the seventh day is the seventh and the Sabbath. Our secular week commences with Monday; we labor six days, and rest the seventh.”
In the above we are presumed to divide our time by days and rest on each seventh one. But we are permitted to rest any day so it is preceded by six days of work. Taking that view of it, the Seventh-day Adventist is safe, for he commences work Sunday morning, works his six days and rests one. Suppose a man has been sick, and gets able to work on Thursday, according to the Advocate he has no seventh day until he has worked six days. This would bring his Sabbath on Wednesday. Another beginning work on Friday his seventh day would come on Thursday, thus every man makes his own seventh day. The Advocate writer makes his come on Sunday by commencing work Monday.
That a man can make his own rest day, there is no question; but it is his own not God's. Then to himself and not to God may he look for the reward. It is true the Hebrew word Sabbath means rest, and therefore, God's Sabbath day is God's rest day. God rested on the seventh day and pronounced a blessing on it. Gen. 2:2-3. He did not rest, nor pronounce a blessing on any other day. It always will be true that the seventh day is God's rest-day. (Heb. Sabbath). A person can as easily change his birthday as he can God's rest day.
“There are facts worthy of note in this discussion which our Advent brethren seem wholly to ignore. (1) There is no command given in regard to Sabbath observance till long after the flood. No mention is made of it till after the exodus from Egypt. When the manna fell in the wilderness for six consecutive nights, a double portion fell on the sixth day, the supply being thus furnished for the day of rest or Sabbath which is here mentioned for the first time in the writings of Moses. (2) The command was given for its observance when the law was received at Sinai. (3) We ask, how did the Israelites count time in keeping fasts, feasts, and seasons of worship? Certainly not from the completion of the work of creation, but from the night of their departure from the land of bondage. If they traveled six days it was from that eventful hour of deliverance. Their first rest or Sabbath, if kept, was counted from that date period, as were all their rests or holy days.”
Will the Advocate shew where a command was given before the flood, against blasphemy, theft, adultery, or lying. When was the command given to Cain against murder? There is no record of any, and yet he was punished, which proves that there was a law against taking life, “For where no law is, there is no transgression.” Rom. 4:15.
When the manna fell, the people of their own accord, gathered enough on the sixth day to last two days, although they had been told to gather only for one day at a time, and when they gathered twice as much on the sixth day, the rulers came and told Moses, and he said that was right, for the morrow was the Sabbath. Ex. 16:19-26. The account shows that it was an existing institution at that time. When some of the people went out on that day to gather manna, the Lord rebuked the act, and said, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws.” Verses 27, 28.
As to how the Israelites counted time for their fasts and feast days does not enter into this question at all. These were memorials of events connected with their deliverance.
Not so of the seventh-day Sabbath, it was God's great memorial of creation and his creative power, the day on which he rested. Gen. 2:2-3. Ex. 20:11. “And thou madest known unto them thy holy Sabbaths.” Neh. 19:14. If any had questioned their having the right day as the Sabbath, God's withholding the manna on that day, would settle it beyond dispute. But up to this time there was no written law given to man against Sabbath-breaking, or any other sin. But about one month later the commandments are written on tables of stone, and given to the people, and Moses is instructed to write the record of creation, and he makes that record include the history of the Sabbath. Gen. 2:1-3. The fourth commandment says “Remember the Sabbath” thus pointing to it as being already known, and not to be forgotten.
“Coming down to the gospel dispensation, this may be said with emphasis: While there is no formal abrogation of the commandments, they are not re-enacted; yet they are greatly simplified and their purport is more easily comprehended. While the letter, or outward husk, has fallen off, the spirit or essence of every requirement is retained. The crude conceptions of Jewish teachers were frequently corrected by Jesus. He gave as the sum of the decalogue two commandments which comprehended all: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’”
The whole argument for the Sabbath in the gospel dispensation is here admitted, in the fact that there is no abrogation of the commandments. And not being abrogated, why should they, how could they be re-enacted? Are the statute laws of California made void because the Legislature of the State does not re-enact them at each session? And yet it would be more consistent to require this, than to require God to re-enact his law in the gospel. For the legislature exists for the purpose of making and changing laws. While God's gospel is not given as law, but to show us how we can be saved, having broken his holy law, and thereby become sinners.
What is meant by the “letter and husk of the commandment falling off, and leaving the spirit and essence,” we are not told. We refer enquirers to the Advocate, to learn what is the useless outward husk of the commandments, “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” It is true the whole law is fulfilled in loving God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves. “For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.” 1 John 5:3; also John 14:15, 21, 23, 24.
The above texts tell us how we may know that we do love God supremely, by this, that we keep his commandments.
“In regard to the Sabbath the Master was constantly giving offense, Himself and disciples attending to various duties which the rabbis considered wrong on that day. Jesus declared a great truth: ‘The Sabbath was made for man;’ ‘the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.’ He wrought his miracles on that day. His disciples traveled about the country, and when hungry plucked ears of corn and did eat.”
Why did Christ offend the Jews? Not because he broke the Sabbath, but because he broke their traditions. He acknowledged the Sabbath and said, “It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day.” Matt. 12:12. This was said in defense of the very acts above mentioned. Webster defines lawful; as, agreeable to law; conformable to law. Thus Christ acknowledges the Sabbath law and tells them that what he is doing is in perfect harmony therewith. See fourth commandment. But it was not in harmony with the many traditions which were held by the Jews. They held that it was wrong to thresh on the Sabbath, and when the disciples rubbed the grain in their hands, this was said to be a kind of threshing, therefore wrong. They held that it was wrong to go hunting on the Sabbath day, therefore one might not kill a flea on that day, as that was a kind of hunting. “The Sabbath was made for man,” not against him by being loaded with such traditions.
“1. Jesus never by word or deed instructed his disciples to observe the seventh day—or Sabbath.
“2. In his fearful denunciations of sin, and his rebukes of transgressors, he never mentions Sabbath-breakers, nor the sin of Sabbath breaking.
“3. The apostles are wholly silent in regard to Sabbath breaking. In all the epistles, when catalogues of sins are given, for the commission of which the transgressor shall be shut out of the kingdom of heaven, Sabbath breaking is not once mentioned.
“4. Why this reticence? It is surely for a purpose. Had the blessed Master intended his disciples to perpetuate the Jewish Sabbath he would have certainly given them positive instructions on the duty of its observance. Had the apostles regarded the observance of the seventh day as holy, in writing to the churches they would have said something on the subject, and the importance of the obligation.”
We have already shown that Christ acknowledged the Sabbath law, and the Advocate admits there was no formal abrogation of it. Jesus says: “The Sabbath was made for man.” He told his disciples to pray that their flight to the mountains of Judea, which took place A. D. 70, be not on the Sabbath day. Matt. 24:20. Why this prayer if he was not teaching Sabbath observance? We have heard it said that it was because the gates of Jerusalem would be closed on that day. But he is not talking to those only who are in Jerusalem, but to all those in the province of Judea. It was a definite day too; think of the disciples praying that their flight to the mountains might not be on any seventh part of time. When would they have gone? Christ and his apostles repeatedly tell us to “keep the commandments,” and make them the conditions of eternal life. Matt. 5:19; Rev. 22:14; Matt. 19:17. The disciples kept the Sabbath after the crucifixion; they would not go to anoint the body of their Lord on that day. Luke 23:56. We have before shown that the commandments are not repeated as a law in the New Testament as it is not a book of law. For a proof test let the Advocate find the commandment against image worship in the New Testament. Paul in his defense before Felix said he believed “all things which are written in the law.” Acts 24:14. Thus they acknowledge the existence of the whole law, but do not repeat it verbatim. As to the Jewish Sabbath, we keep no such institution; and it is never so called in the word of God. But it is the “Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Does that spell Jew! We recommend our brother to a Bible-class and spelling-school.
“5. The early Christians did meet regularly on the first day of the week for worship. This was the stated time from the day of our Lord's resurrection. They called it the “Lord's day.” Then they read the Scripture, offered prayers, sung hymns, expounded the word, and celebrated the holy communion. They did this regularly and constantly for a period of more than two centuries before the birth of Constantine, whose decree was intended to legalize it as a Sabbath.
“6. Justin Martyr and other fathers who lived during the first and second centuries are positive in their statements that Christians from the days of the apostles kept the first day of the week, the Lord's day, and no one questioned their authority for doing so. They kept no other day; those who deny this statement falsify history and stultify themselves.
“7. This well attested fact, taken in connection with the ministry of Christ and his apostles, clearly settles the question of the validity of the Lord's day as the Christian rest or Sabbath.”
The Advocate has suddenly got over the difficulty it had in keeping a definite day. There does not appear to be any trouble about keeping the first day on the round world where time varies so. Does the world get flat on the first day, and the sun strike all its surface at once on Sunday?
Who stated the time of meeting to be on the first day of the week, from the day of our Lord's resurrection? Did Christ or the apostles? If so, where is the record? We answer, They never made such a statement.
For the term, “Lord's day,” see Rev. 1:10. John says he was in the spirit on the “Lord's day,” but does not tell us what day of the week that was. But the expression does show that the Lord had a day that he called his. Isa. 58:13. The Lord calls the Sabbath “my holy day,” also in the fourth commandment, and he never said it of any other day. And the expression is not used as being applied to the first day of the week by any writer before Clement, A. D. 198.
We are told Constantine's decree was intended to legalize the first day as a Sabbath. We will give that edict; the original can be seen in the library of Harvard College: “Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven. Given the seventh day of March; Crispus and Constantine being consuls, each of them for the second time.”
This edict, made in A. D. 321, had no reference to the first day as a Christian Sabbath, but as the venerable day of the sun. Constantine was a Pagan at that time and worshiped as his principal god the sun, from which Pagan worship the name Sunday is derived. Moshiem says of this edict in his Eccl. Hist. Cent. IV, Part II, Chap. iv, Sec. 5: The first day of the week was in consequence of this law “observed with greater solemnity than it had formerly been.” And yet all the country people were allowed to work. Certainly they had not attached much sacredness to it before.
The Encyc. Am., Art. Sabbath, thus mentions this law: “Constantine the Great made a law for the whole empire (A. D. 321), that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work on that day.” Gibbon in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. 20, thus speaks of Constantine as a sun worshiper: “The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine.” This Pagan law being unrepealed was afterwards seized upon by the church and used to enforce the observance of the first day of the week instead of the seventh.
The statement that Justin Martyr and other fathers of the first and second centuries are positive that Christians from the days of the apostles kept the first day of the week and kept no other day, although being made with such a dashing assertion we will nevertheless stop and examine. The Bible brings us nearly through the first century and never commands or mentions a single case of Sunday keeping.
Justin Martyr wrote A. D. 140, and in his letter to the emperor of Rome, states that they met together on Sunday, and gives as one of the reasons, that God commenced the work of creation on that day. He gives no sacred title to it whatever. We find that Justin was a bitter opponent of the Sabbath. In his “Dialogue with Trypho the Jew,” he says the Sabbath was given to the Jews because of their iniquities, and that we need no Sabbath now. Mosheim says:
“Many also observed the fourth day of the week, on which Christ was betrayed; and the sixth, which was the day of his crucifixion.” Eccl. His. Cent. II, Part II, Chap. i, Sec. 12.
Domville says: “Not an ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to his apostles.” Examination of the Six Texts, Supplement, pp. 6, 7. Pryne thus testifies in “Dissertation on the Lord's-day Sabbath,” pp. 33, 34, 44: “It is certain that Christ himself, his apostles, and the primitive Christians for some good space of time, did constantly observe the seventh day Sabbath . . . the evangelists and St. Luke in the Acts ever styling it the Sabbath day, . . . and making mention of its . . . solemnization by the apostles and other Christians, . . . it being still solemnized by many Christians after the apostle's times, even till the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, as ecclesiastical writers and the twenty-ninth canon of that council testify, which runs thus: ‘Because Christians ought not to Judaize, and “to rest in the Sabbath, but to work in that day, (which many did refuse at that time to do). But preferring in honor the Lord's day (there being then a great controversy among Christians which of these two days should have the precedence) if they desired to rest they should do this as Christians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize, let them be accursed from Christ.’ . . . The seventh-day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean council did in a manner quite abolish the observance of it. . . . The council of Laodicea, A. D. 364. . . . first settled the observation of the Lord's day, and prohibited the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath under an anathema.”
Thus we see the seventh day was kept by many in the church till into the fourth century when the heathen festival, (Sunday, was generally adopted. Neander in his Church History, translated by H. J. Rose, p. 186, says of Sunday in the first and second centuries:—
“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect; far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century, a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to consider laboring on Sunday, a sin.”
We hope our Advocate brethren will look again; surely they cannot have given this subject the careful consideration it deserves, as their positions not only conflict with the Bible and history, but are diametrically opposed to each other; for example, we are told, The Sabbath is an indefinite period. The Sabbath is any seventh day.
The Sabbath is any seventh portion of our time. We are required to keep the first day of the week.
We cannot keep the seventh-day. We do keep the seventh-day.
In gospel dispensation the command is not abrogated. In gospel dispensation Sabbath breaking is not a sin.
Moral considerations require a Sabbath. There was no Sabbath from creation to the time of Moses.
Time varies so a particular day cannot be kept. The early Christians did meet regularly on the first-day of the week.
Christ and apostles wholly silent about Sabbath keeping and Sabbath breaking. We are required to keep the first day of the week, or Lord's day, as the Christian Sabbath.
The above are samples of the contradictions into which error leads even a smart man. We beg our brother to “walk in the light”; for, “a good understanding have all they that do his (God's) commandments.” Ps. 111:10.
We are reminded of the boy who wrote a composition and copied it from several books. He said he had a good composition, but he couldn't make the different parts come together. And so with the Advocate's article; the positions destroy each other. It is even worse than the famous Kettle case, where the attorney said they had proven three things:—
1. The kettle was broken when they borrowed it. 2. The kettle was whole when they returned it. 3. They never had the kettle at all.