WHAT IS THE CHAFF TO THE WHEAT?
MR. CRAFTS ON THE SABBATH.
IN the Christian Statesman of November 19 Rev. W. F. Crafts, the editor in chief, and the great Sunday-law champion of the United States, presents the first of a series of six lectures on the Sabbath question. The subject of this one is “The Sabbath before the Decalogue.” There are some things in these arguments, presumably the strongest which can be put forth, which we wish to notice. Mr. Crafts as usual first pays his respects to seventh-day keepers as follows:— Genesis, not the Gospels, is the battle ground on which the champions of the Saturday Sabbath should first establish their claims. They ask for a “specific command” for the observance of the Lord’s day. Let them give a “specific command” for the observance of the Sabbath before the Decalogue, in which they believe as well as we. If God’s example is enough in Genesis, Christ’s example is enough in the Gospels. If divine acts are to be considered as legislative “acts” that speak louder than words in the one case, they are of like authority in the other. So it is a waste of time for the champions of Saturday to debate “the change of day” until they can prove they have the original day. Their doctrine is that it is essential to salvation to keep the same day that God kept, that Adam kept. To prove that they are keeping such a day, one that has come down in unbroken succession from the first Sabbath of God and man, is the first link and most important link in their chain of Sabbath doctrine; and that link, the very one that fastens to the anchor of their hope, is hopelessly lost in the depths of the past. When they claim that not to keep the original day is as bad as theft, or murder, or adultery, that to keep it is a condition of salvation, it becomes essential to prove to a certainty that they have the original day. They cannot even prove it a probability. It is scarcely a possibility. 1. True Bible Sabbath-keepers do not hold, strictly speaking, to a “Saturday Sabbath.” The Sabbath of the Lord begins at set of sun Friday afternoon, and ends at set of sun Saturday afternoon. This is the Bible method of beginning every day. See Genesis 1; Lev. 23:32; Matt. 8:16; Mark 1:32, etc. The Sabbath of the Bible, therefore, whatever day of the week it may be, includes within itself only about three-fourths of any of our days, according to Roman reckoning. If the Bible time of beginning the day is not material, then one-fourth of the day is not material, for the beginning involves one-fourth of a day.2And if one-fourth of a day is not material, then the other three-fourths are not; and by that logic the holiness of the Sunday sabbath utterly falls. But by “Saturday-sabbath champions” Mr. Crafts means those who hold to the seventh day. These we will term seventh-day keepers. 2. Seventh-day keepers do establish their claims to the Sabbath not only by the Gospels, but by Genesis. Gen. 2:1–3 gives the very foundation of the Sabbath in the Creator's rest, blessing, and sanctification. God rested on the seventh day; that made the seventh day his Sabbath, or rest day. He blessed the seventh day of the cycle after he had rested, “because that in it he had rested;” that made the seventh day God's blessed rest day, or Sabbath. God “sanctified,” “appointed,” or “set apart” that day. To whom did he appoint it? Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man,” the father of all the race, hence for all men. The Sabbath was therefore guarded by a command to man to observe the day. Gen. 2:1–3 does not give that command, because it is not a book of law, but a history of what was past; it does give, however, a record that a specific command was then given. Let the reader turn to the following texts to see the force of the Hebrew word “gadesh,” rendered “sanctify,” “proclaim,” and “appoint.” Ex. 19:23, 12. Sanctifying the mount was commanding the people how it was to be regarded. Josh. 20:7 (see margin) shows that the sanctifying of the cities of refuge was by specific command or appointment. To “sanctify” a fast is the same as to proclaim or command a fast. Compare Joel 2:15 with 2 Chron. 20:3. Therefore Gen. 2:1–3 in connection with Mark 2:27 positively declares that God proclaimed his Sabbath to man, and appointed it to be kept, even as Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast, or Joshua appointed the cities of refuge, or God set bounds about Mount Sinai. We have, therefore, not only the example of the Creator, but the record that he gave a specific command to man concerning the seventh-day Sabbath. Language means nothing if it does not mean this. The Sabbath, the seventh-day Sabbath, is therefore established by Genesis. 3. We have just shown that we have not only the record of God's example, but a record of his command, or appointment. We have, however, no example of Christ in the Gospels, for the observance of the first day of the week as a Sabbath or holy day. We have no record that he ever regarded it as a holy day, nor hint of such a record. We ask for no specific command for “the Lord's day;” we have that in the Decalogue; for the only Lord's day the Bible gives is the seventh day. See Ex. 20:10; Isa. 58:13; Mark 2:28. For the example of our divine Lord we have the deepest reverence, but we want the example. He has given us both example and precept in Genesis, or what is equivalent to that. He has given us neither example nor precept with reference to a holy first day in the Gospels. For a “specific command” for the observance of the Sabbath before the Decalogue, take not only what we have given above, but Ex. 16:23–30. 4. Seventh-day observers have proved many times that “they have the original day,” the seventh day of the cycle “in unbroken succession from the first Sabbath of God and man,” and we are willing to do it again for the benefit of the honest hearted and Mr. Crafts. Note the following:— a. If the succession of the days had been lost from creation to the exodus, we are not dependent on man to set us right. The God who gave the Sabbath showed by a threefold weekly miracle for forty years that only one day of the seven, namely, the seventh, was “the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord” (Ex. 16:23), and this was “the seventh day,” “the Sabbath” (verses 26, 30). b. We are not left to man's devices, memory, or fallible records to preserve the unbroken succession of the days of the weekly cycle to the crucifixion; inspiration has identified and confirmed it. It was “the Sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56), and it was the day just previous to “the first day of the week” (Luke 24:1; Mark 16:1, 2). We therefore are carried by inspiration from the crucifixion back to Sinai and the identification of the Sabbath by the manna; and by God's voice on Sinai and the instruction concerning the manna, we identify indisputably the Sabbath of the Decalogue and the original Sabbath. c. No scholar will for one moment contend that the order of the days of the week has been lost between now and the crucifixion of Christ. All history is against it; astronomical records are against it; the Jews scattered all over the earth are against it; Sunday-keepers are against it. The first day then is the first day now. Therefore seventh-day keepers are observing in direct succession the original seventh day. We leave the candid reader who believes God's word to judge of its “possibility” and “probability” or certainty. It is not man who testifies at these important epochs; it is God. Well might we count it “hopeless” were we dependent on man, but we have God's word, a rock upon which we may rest. And yet, looking at it from a purely human standpoint, it is not probable, scarcely possible, that the whole world should forget the count of the days. Once in a great while an individual does; rarely, indeed, a family does; but for a neighborhood, to say nothing of towns, counties, States, countries, and the whole world, to forget is preposterous. Upon this we need not dwell; God has spoken. 5. “Their seventh day,” continues Mr. Crafts, “is only a play upon words.” Indeed! Mr. Crafts says “the seventh day after six of work.” So Adam could have had one Sabbath, Cain another, Abel a third, and so on. And according to this logic God did not rest on a definite day. But the word says, and logic and common sense declare it must be true, God rested on a particular day; he blessed a particular day; he sanctified or commanded that particular day, “because that in it he had rested.” This particular day, “the seventh day,” he indicated by the fall of the manna, and enjoined it in the Decalogue for the same reasons he instituted it in the beginning. See Ex. 20:8–11; Gen. 2:1–3. This “Sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56) is the day before, as previously shown, “the first day of the week,” about which Mr. Crafts sneers. Reader, what day of the week is that which comes next before “the first day of the week.” Well, that day “is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” God has therefore given as his Sabbath the definite seventh day of the weekly cycle. Whose word, reader, is called in question to say that we know not when the Sabbath comes—the word of God, who gave the Sabbath, or the words of men who believe God enough to obey him? 6. The observance of any day is not a matter of salvation, but a matter of faith. Faith obeys; it cannot do otherwise. The absence of obedience shows that saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is also absent. We shall have more to say on Mr. Crafts' lectures in the future. Decide, reader, not by the word of men but by the word of God. “What is the chaff to the wheat?”