“SABBATH OR LORD’S DAY, WHICH?”
By Editor
IN our issue last week by request we reviewed an article with the above title, which appeared in the Christian Standard of September 2, 1893. The following points have been already noticed: (1) The various sabbaths of the Jews, “besides the Sabbaths of the Lord;” (2) the institution of the Sabbath at creation; (3) the obligation of the Sabbath from the creation to the exodus; (4) the Sabbath during the Egyptian bondage; (5) the eternity, perpetuity, and universality of God’s law, of which the Sabbath was a part; and (6) the Sabbath as a memorial and sign of creative and redemptive power. 7. The writer in the Standard says:— This is the first time it was enacted as a statutory law. We have now found the origin of the Sabbath as a law; let us look for the origin and meaning of the word. It is derived from sabbatismos, or sabbaton, which means cessation, or rest. This simply illustrates the ignorance of many anti-sabbath arguments. Sabbaton and sabbatismos are Greek words, or, rather, Hebrew terms transferred to the Greek. The original word is shabbath. “Sabbath” is a Hebrew word, which means to cease, to rest; that is, a spiritual, not physical rest. That was the divine example (Ex. 31:17), for God “fainteth not, neither is weary.” Now let us consider its [the law’s] perpetuity. Paul in Gal. 3:19 says: “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgression, till the seed should come.” We learn from this it was limited to the coming of Christ. To this agrees the language of the prophet as quoted by Paul (Heb. 8:7-10): “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.” But now let us hear the apostle again on this subject: “If the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away.” 2 Cor. 3:7. Again: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath.” Col. 2:14-16. In Romans, sixth chapter and fourteenth verse, he says, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” In the seventh chapter of Romans, from the fourth to the sixth verses, he tells his brethren they have become dead to the law, and delivered from the law, and in the seventh verse he shows this to be the law written and engraven upon stones. These and other scriptures that might be quoted show that the Sabbath law ended when the Jewish dispensation ended. All the feasts and all the sabbaths were equally sacred. They all ended together when Jesus nailed them to his cross. Here is a curious jumble of Scripture texts; such work certainly could hardly be called rightly dividing the word of truth. We notice briefly: (a) The coming of the Seed in the sense of that text is not yet; “till the Seed [Christ] should come to whom the promise was made,” says the apostle. What was the promise? Answer—The promise of the inheritance to Abraham. Gal. 3:16, 18. What was the inheritance? Answer—All that territory which has been under the control of the enemies of Christ since the fall (Gen. 22:17, 18; Luke 4:5, 6), or, in other words, this world (Rom. 4:13). When will Christ take the kingdoms of this world? Answer—At his second coming again with power and great glory. See Eze. 21:27; Matt. 25:31, 34; 2 Tim. 4:1; Dan. 7:27. “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added [appointed, spoken] because of transgressions,” “that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” Rom. 7:13. “Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound.” Rom. 5:20. That is, God spoke his law from heaven, wrote it on tables of stone, added it in this form, in addition to all former ways in which he had taught it, gave it all summed up in ten words, and “added no more,” in answer to the prayers of the people (Deut. 5:22; Ex. 20:19); and he did all this that men might ever have before them the testimony that they were poor, wretched sinners, and so he led to the abounding grace there is in Christ Jesus. When Christ, the Seed, shall come to inherit the promise, every soul will be saved, and the office of the law as a witness of sin will cease. (b) The old covenant was a mutual covenant between God and Israel, and had no salvation in it. It was made with the nation, and in it God promised to bless the people, while the people agreed through their elders to obey God’s voice. God’s voice was the ten commandments, which he immediately after spoke. Israel broke their agreement in less than forty days, but that did not alter God’s law. The law was not the mutual covenant, and in the very nature of the case could not be. The law is God’s will, obligatory upon all, whether any promise to keep it or not. In the new covenant, which was from the beginning, but confirmed later by the death of Christ, the same law of God is written on the hearts of all his people. That covenant was confirmed at the death of Christ, and after that confirmation “no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.” See Gal. 3:15; Heb. 9:16, 17. What, therefore, was in that covenant when Christ died on the cross must forever remain there. Well, the seventh-day Sabbath was then in the covenant, and it is never denied; and the first-day sabbath was not, and this is not denied. Whatever else is claimed to be there, which is read into that will of God’s, is a forgery, it matters not though it came but one hour after Jesus said, “It is finished.” The covenant was sealed with the blood of Christ; the will was forever unalterable. (c) Why 2 Cor. 3:7 is quoted we do not know, unless it be for the expression, “which glory was to be done away.” Something was to be done away; the writer wanted to prove God’s law done away, and therefore he seized this expression. But what is it that “was to be done away”?—Simply the glory of that condemnation. The law is glorious to the condemned sinner, but it is done away in the greater glory of the righteousness of Christ. But the law remains, a blessed witness of the greater glory of the righteousness which is upon him who sees by faith his Justifier, Jesus Christ. Rom. 3:21, 22. (d) Col. 2:14-17 (the quotation is not complete as given above) has no reference whatever to the moral law, or the Sabbath of the Lord. There is nothing in the Decalogue that is typical or shadowy. It commands no feast days or new moons. The holy days, the new moons, the sabbath days, were those yearly feasts and fasts (Leviticus 23) “which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” Col. 2:17. (e) He is “under the law,” under its condemnation, who is not in Christ. By nature all are under the law, for all have sinned. Rom. 3:9, 19, 23. But he who by faith accepts of Christ is justified, or counted righteous. His faith is counted for obedience. See Rom. 3:21, 22; 4:5-7; 5:1. And because we have died to sin, and the sin is taken away, and righteousness is imputed, through grace, sin has no dominion over us. But what then? does this give us the privilege of sinning, or breaking God’s law?—Not at all; for if we turn again to sin, we become the servants of sin, and are again under condemnation of law. We are made free from sin that Christ working through us may keep the law. Rom. 8:4; 1 John 5:3. And this is Paul’s argument all through Romans 7. Married to the old man, we are the servants of sin, held in bondage by the law, which we can never keep. But yielding ourselves to Christ, dying with him by faith, the old man crucified and buried, we are delivered from the condemnation of the law, and are free to be married “to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” Rom. 7:4. Would the writer have us believe in Christ and steal, kill, commit adultery, and use profane language?—It would seem so. The logic of his argument is that Christ saves us to sin instead of from sin. But what he wishes to prove is that we are not “under the law,” and therefore are not bound to keep the Sabbath. But he that said, “Thou shalt not kill,” said also, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Now if we do not kill, yet if we break the Sabbath, we become transgressors of the law. See James 2:8-12. (f) The yearly sabbaths ended when the shadow reached the substance at the cross. The weekly Sabbath is of the same character and perpetuity as the other nine commandments with which it is associated. 9. The writer, after endeavoring to prove by Paul, who wrote twenty-seven years this115side of Pentecost, that the law was abrogated, nailed to the cross, done away, etc., says:— Christ did not destroy the law; he magnified it by fulfilling it, and then it passed away. When the church of Christ was established at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, we find a new lawgiver, a new order of things. We find also nine commandments of the Decalogue embodied in the new law. The Holy Spirit put them there—six of them in Rom. 13:9, the other three in James 5:12, Col. 3:5, and Rev. 19:3. The fourth commandment, containing the Sabbatic law, is left out. Hence there is no divine authority for keeping the Sabbath after the church on Pentecost. We take no pleasure in pointing out the Standards article's inconsistency. It is only to show the utter absurdity of error. (a) Now if the Decalogue reached only to the cross, and the new law was given at Pentecost, fifty days afterward, then for fifty days the world had no law, and hence no sin, "for where no law is, there is no transgression," and no need of a Saviour. (b) But six of the precepts of this new law did not appear till Paul wrote Romans, twenty-seven years afterward. But the law which Paul mentions in Rom. 13:9 is the very same law which he refers to in Rom. 6:14 and 7:6, 7. Yet our writer has already argued that the law of Rom. 6:14 and 7:6, 7 is done away, and therefore the commandments of Rom. 13:9 are gone. What will he do? (c) James 5:12 is evidently designed to mean the third commandment. If we grant it, this was given also about thirty years after Pentecost. But James (chap. 2:8-12) affirms the obligation of the entire law, the royal law, and according to the Old Testament scriptures. (d) Col. 3:5 is evidently designed to cover the second commandment. This was given thirty-three years after Pentecost. (e) Rev. 19:3 contains no semblance of a command. Did he mean verse 5? If so the language is prophetic of the redeemed state; and if it were not, this command, if command it can be called, did not come till over sixty years this side of Pentecost! A strange new law! And every writer and book from which Mr. Tate quotes confirms, if it is possible to confirm, the Decalogue, of which Jesus Christ said, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16:17; Matt. 5:17-20. We wonder that men can be so blind! A law which in its very nature is eternal, which was separated out and proclaimed by Jehovah from heaven, which was written on stone by his own finger, which was kept by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our example, the integrity of which he vindicated and honored by his death upon the cross, to deliver men from the condemnation of which, and to enable man to keep, he came to this world,—for men to attempt to tear down such a law solely to get rid of a commandment which greater light shows them to be transgressing, is beyond human comprehension. Why not turn from the transgression to Christ? He will make "the Sabbath a delight." Is not the secret of all this opposition to God's law told by Paul when he says: "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be"? 10. The only day called the Sabbath in the New Testament is the seventh day. It was a day for worship when all other days were used in work. See Acts 18:1-11, where it is recorded that Paul preached every Sabbath, and worked at tent making the rest of the time. It was a day of religious meeting for both Jews and Gentiles. Acts 13:42, 46. This was Paul's common custom. See Acts 16:13; 17:2. 12. He says that Pentecost "was upon the first day of the week." But this is not stated in the Scriptures, and eminent first-day authorities do not agree. If the first day was honored by the events of Pentecost, would not the Lord have mentioned the day? Ps. 118:24 has no reference whatever to any Sabbath day. It is prophetic of the Christian dispensation. 13. There is absolutely no testimony whatever in the New Testament for the sacredness of the first day of the week. There is but one record of a religious meeting on that day, and that an evening meeting, the last part, the light part of that same day, being used in hard, toilsome labor. See Acts 20:7-14. 14. We will not follow the article we are reviewing into the history of the early Fathers. Suffice to say he quotes the spurious epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, the worse than spurious epistle of Barnabas—the author of which believed the hyena changed its sex, and was sometimes male and sometimes female—and others. He goes to these writers because he cannot find the testimony he desires in the Bible. In the early Fathers one can find testimony for everything he desires, evil and good. 15. In his closing paragraph we have the following:— The Sabbatic law was never changed. The divine law cannot be changed. It must serve its purpose, and then end. Jesus did not destroy it, he fulfilled it, and then it ended. The Lord gave us a new day—his resurrection day. On that day we find Christian assemblies. They came to break bread. How appropriate the day, and how sublime the occasion! Lord, help us to follow the inspired example. "Day of all the week the best, emblem of eternal rest." The first two sentences are absolutely true. And yet Mr. Tate has taken great pains to prove that God did away with the entire Decalogue at the cross, and then, from thirty to sixty years after, brought back nine of its precepts, some of them so artfully that no one but our author has discovered them; and that all this was done, by divine wisdom and power, to get rid of the Sabbath. Truly Mr. Tate must think that "God is altogether such an one as" himself. Jesus fulfilled the first commandment; did it end? He fulfilled the sixth and seventh and eighth; did they end? Why, then, the fourth? 16. "The Lord gave us a new day"! When? How? Why? Where? Where is the precept? Where the example? How first-day people would rejoice if they found a record something like this: "And on the first day he rose from the dead. And the Lord blessed the first day and sanctified it, because that in it he had risen from the dead"! They would ask no better proof. But when similar language is used, backed home by many other passages concerning the seventh day (Gen. 2:2, 3), it is considered of no force whatever. But here we pause. The arguments in the article we have been reviewing were not worth the notice which we have accorded, and yet the article itself is no worse than many others of like length. It is inconsistent and self-devouring. It would break down all law, all morality, make of no effect Christ's teachings and example, simply to save a tradition received from the Roman Catholic Church. The question is not, "The Sabbath or Lord's day, Which?" It is no question at all; it is, rather, The seventh-day Sabbath is the only Lord's day. Reader, is not God's way, Christ's way, the way of prophets and apostles, the better way? Will you not walk in these "old paths," hallowed by the presence of the Son of God? God's way is the way of peace.