DO WE KNOW THE TRUE SEVENTH DAY?
By Editor
THERE are many honest souls, many sincere Christians, who believe the Bible and who desire to do God's will in respect to all things, the Sabbath included, but they are in doubt respecting the day. At some time in their life the Lord through some means calls their attention to the true Sabbath. They naturally go to their pastors or religious leaders for information, in whom they have been taught to have confidence. The replies of these spiritual advisers and shepherds of the flock are so various that a thoughtful student of the word of God would see in their very contradictions the evidence of their error. Here are a few of the answers that are given to those who are seeking to know the way: "A seventh part of the time is all that is required; one day is as good as another." "The old Jewish Sabbath is done away, and the first day is now the Sabbath, in honor of Christ's resurrection." "Time has been lost, and we do not know which is the seventh day." "The church changed the day, and God has sanctioned it by his blessing." "There is no law in the Bible for Sunday, but as the law of the land requires it, it should be observed," making religious practices dependent on the vicissitudes, fluctuations, and expediences of human law. These and other mutually destructive answers are given, sometimes by the same man in the course of one discourse or conversation, to prove that we ought not to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, those putting them forth not realizing that they are destroying each other's foundation and charging God with folly. But Sunday, the de facto Sabbath, it is felt must be maintained at all hazards, and to do this the heir named in the will, the Sabbath de jure, must be set aside. These thoughts are suggested by several queries which have come to us of late, among which is the following candid letter from a Christian brother in an Eastern State:— MR. EDITOR: Some good friend has been sending the SIGNS OF THE TIMES to me for several weeks, and I am grateful for the kindness. I enjoy reading it, and appreciate its merits. Of course, I cannot agree with all the findings in its columns, and there is one point concerning which I seem to be unable to see the foundation for your position. I refer to the Sabbath. I believe (Gen. 2:3) that "God blessed and sanctified the seventh day," that he bids us "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," etc., and I am trying in every way to do the will of my Father. But I cannot see how you or any man is able to compute the time or follow the chronology of events since the creation with sufficient correctness and certainty to be able to assert positively that Saturday is the seventh day or that Sunday is not the seventh day. Can I hope to be in any measure informed on this subject? Yours in the Master's service. We hope to give the desired information, but first let us say that a knowledge of what is the true seventh-day Sabbath is not dependent on the chronology of events from the creation. God has made every practical duty depend upon knowledge which is reasonably within the reach of every man who will put forth proper effort to know, as our correspondent is evidently doing. "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." In the word of God is revealed the old ways and the good ways. 1. God ordained the Sabbath in the beginning. Gen. 2:2, 3. A specific day, the seventh, around which clustered the great facts of creation, was chosen as the rest day of Jehovah. God rested upon that day, making it his rest day; and no other than the seventh of the cycle could ever be counted his rest day. He then placed his blessing on the day, and sanctified it, or set it apart for man, holy to His service. This he did in the beginning, not for one race, but for all men. "The Sabbath was made for man." Certainly we have the true seventh day clearly defined in the beginning. 2. Admitting that the chronological order of the days of the week was lost during the twenty-five centuries that intervened between creation and the Exodus, the true seventh-day Sabbath is not lost. He who is "too wise to err" points it out by a threefold weekly miracle in the fall of the manna for forty years. The manna fell on every day but the Sabbath; a double portion fell on the sixth day; that which was preserved would keep over the Sabbath, but would keep over no other day. This seventh day is declared to be "the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord," and "the seventh day which is the Sabbath." See Exodus 16. There could be no question among the people of God at that time as to which was the true seventh day. 3. Nearly fifteen centuries of alternate sun and shade, light and darkness, reformation and apostasy, liberty and captivity, follow. During those trying times the true Sabbath possibly might have been lost, though it is not at all probable or reasonable. But at the end of that checkered period there comes to earth Him in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, in whom were all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. What may have been dark and obscure to men was light and clear to Him. He knew the Sabbath, and declared Himself the Lord of it. Mark 2:27. He showed by his own works what it was "lawful" to do on the holy day. Matt. 12:12. At the close of his earth life he declared that he had kept his Father's commandments (John 15:10), and abode in his Father's love. His perfect life, in perfect harmony with the perfect law of God (of which one jot or tittle cannot fail, Matt. 5:15-17; Luke 16:17), is left us as our example (1 John 2:6; 5:3; 1 Peter 2:22). The New Testament, written all the way from A.D. 38 to A.D. 97, calls but one day the Sabbath. The day thus named was the day kept by the Jews, the day which came just before "the first day of the week," "the Sabbath day according to the commandment." See Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 23:56; 24:1. It is the only weekly Sabbath day concerning which God has given us any command or spoken any blessing. 4. From the time of the crucifixion to the present there has never been raised the question of the succession of the days of the week. Sunday is considered by all to be the first day of the week of the New Testament. The day prior to that (Bible time) was the seventh day of the week, the true seventh day, and so termed by Inspiration. Eclipses dated as far back as 500 years before Christ, show that there has been no lost time. The Jews, scattered in every nation of the world, are positive evidence to the same effect. And the constant practice of the greater part of Christendom proves that the first day of the week of the New Testament is coincident with the first day of the week now, with this exception, the Bible first day began at sunset the day previous and ended at sunset, twenty-four hours later. And therefore the Sabbath of the New Testament, which was the day just before the first day of the week, which was the Sabbath "according to the commandment," which was the Sabbath marked by God's miracle of the manna, which was the day on which God rested, which he blessed and sanctified, is the seventh day in regular succession at the present time. This seventh day must therefore also be coincident in time with our Saturday, except that Saturday begins at midnight, while the Sabbath of the Lord begins Friday evening at sunset and closes Saturday evening at sunset. Is not the above evidence sufficient? God himself has made sure by inspiration, by mighty miracle, by his own Son, the Sabbath for the first four thousand years of earth's history; and there is no question among men as to the proper order of the days for the last nineteen hundred years. These are the old ways, the good way, and in walking therein we can assure our correspondent there is rest, precious rest to the soul, through Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath.