The Lord's Day by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 4, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 46.

The Lord's Day.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

(Continued.)

FROM the Bible we have fully identified the Lord's day. Following is a brief summary of the means by which it is done: The title Lord is applied to both Christ and the Father. Since these two are one, that which belongs to one must be the property of the other also; there can be no division between them. In Isa. 58:13 we learn that the Lord's day is holy, and that it is the Sabbath; and this at once caused us to turn to the fourth commandment, where we found that the seventh day is declared to be the Sabbath. Now since the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord (Ex. 20:10), and the Sabbath is the Lord's holy day (Ex. 20:10, 11; Isa. 58:13), it necessarily follows that the seventh day is the Lord's day. Lest any one should think that this is not definite enough, we have it stated that the women who rested on the "Sabbath day, according to the commandment" (Luke 24:56), did so upon the day before the first day of the week, or in other words, upon the seventh day of the week. In the naming of the days of the week, the name "Saturday" was given to the seventh day (see Webster's Dictionary, Cyclopedias, etc.), and since the names are now used more frequently than the numerals, it may be more clear if we say that from the Bible we find that the day now called Saturday is the Lord's day. So confident are we of the correctness of our deductions that we defy anybody to show from the Bible that any other day than Saturday is entitled to the designation "Lord's day."

Although the fact that the seventh day—Saturday—is the true Lord's day has been established, we will carry our investigation further, and show that there is no chance for even the supposition that any other day was elevated to the position of Lord's day. In the second chapter of Mark, we find that on a certain occasion the Pharisees reproved Christ for allowing his disciples to satisfy their hunger on the Sabbath day, by eating the wheat which they plucked as they walked through the field. It will not be disputed that the day here called "the Sabbath day" was the seventh day of the week,—Saturday,—because it was the day which the Pharisees recognized as the Sabbath. Let this be borne in mind while you read the words of Christ, "Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:28. In the face of this, can any one deny

that the seventh-day Sabbath is the Lord's day? The fourth commandment plainly declares that it is so, and Christ has added his testimony to the same effect.

It is sometimes claimed that the text last quoted, "The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath," shows that, as Lord of the Sabbath, Christ had the authority to do with it as he pleased, even to changing it, or dispensing with it entirely. We will not discuss the question of his right or power; the only question that can affect the case is, Did he, as Lord of the Sabbath, violate it, or give any individuals license to do so? He did not, as we shall see; then, of course, his being Lord of the Sabbath day, does not alter our relation to it. He was its Lord from the beginning, and we cannot show our allegiance to him as our Lord, without honoring the day which he specially claims as his own. We will now examine some texts to show how Jesus regarded the Sabbath day.

In Luke 4:16 we read as follows concerning an act of Christ very soon after his baptism: "And he came to Nazareth, where he was brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read." Webster's definition of the word "custom" is this: "Frequent repetition of the same act; way of acting; ordinary manner; habitual practice; usage." So we learn that it was his habitual practice to observe the seventh-day Sabbath as a day of public worship. This is in perfect harmony with his declaration in John 15:10: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." If he kept his Father's commandments, he must have kept the fourth commandment, which enjoins the observance of the seventh day of the week; and so we learn from Christ's own statement, made the very night of his betrayal, that he had always kept the Sabbath.

John 5:18 is sometimes quoted as proof that Christ did not regard the Sabbath as sacred. His own testimony should certainly be taken in preference to that of the Pharisees. They said that he had broken the Sabbath; he said, some time after the event recorded in John 5, "I have kept my Father's commandments." We must believe, then, that he did not break the Sabbath. It is true he went directly contrary to some of the Rabbinical traditions, but that amounts to nothing. Had he followed their traditions, he could not have kept the law, for by their traditions they transgressed the law. Matt. 15:3.

What had Jesus done that the Pharisees accused him of Sabbath-breaking? He had on the Sabbath day healed a man of an infirmity of thirty-eight years' standing, and had told him to take up the little mat upon which he was lying, and walk. John 5:1-9. Now was this a good act? Most certainly it was. Well, Jesus himself declared, on another and similar occasion, that "it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days." Matt. 12:12. He is Lord of the Sabbath, and, as such, was competent to declare the law of the Sabbath. The charge that Jesus broke the Sabbath comes now, as it did then, from a narrow and mistaken idea of the Sabbath commandment. He said that his act was lawful, and so it was, for the fourth commandment forbids only our own, or secular work. Work that is done in the service of God, as was that performed by the priests in the sanctuary, work that does not in any way benefit the worker, but is solely for the glory of God, is not forbidden by the commandment. Thus the Saviour is vindicated from the charge of Sabbath-breaking. How serious a charge this is, and how blindly wicked are those who make it, will be shown next week. E. J. W.