SOME SUNDAY ARGUMENTS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 37.

SOME SUNDAY ARGUMENTS.

THE Victoria (B. C.) Weekly Colonist, of May 25, contains a report of a sermon on “The Christian Sabbath” by the Rev. Dr. Campbell, of the First Presbyterian Church of that city, which we are requested to notice. It really presents nothing worthy of notice. Those who know God’s word will readily see all its fallacies. However, all do not know God’s word, and it is this class we hope to help in the following remarks.

The gentleman evidently did the best he could for the cause he represented, but, unfortunately for those who attempt to defend Sunday, they champion an ignoble cause, concerning which we may well inquire, in the words of the Scripture, “Who hath required this at your hand?” Dr. Campbell takes the following positions, which we number:—

[1] Although it [the Sabbath] was the seventh day of the week in relation to God’s work, it was first in relation to man’s; for before he entered on the toil of tilling the garden of Eden he enjoyed the blessings of the Sabbath, the day on which God rested from all his work of creation.

To this we may reply that according to the Sacred Record Adam’s first day was the sixth day, upon which were brought before him all the animals, which he that day named. Compare Gen. 2: 19, 20 with 1: 27–31.

After admitting that the weekly division of time was observed down through the ages, he well says:—

The word “remember,” with which the fourth commandment begins, seems to indicate that the Sabbath was well known to the Hebrews, for indeed no new law was given at Sinai, and the fourth commandment only put the law of the Sabbath in a more definite form than it formerly was.

He continues:—

[2] The essential element in the fourth commandment is setting apart one day in seven for rest, and six days for labor. Emphasis is laid upon the idea of the Sabbath. “Remember the Sabbath day,” not the seventh day, “to keep it holy,” and the command closes with the statement, “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day,” not the seventh day, “and hallowed it.” . . . While in the body of the commandment the seventh day is mentioned as the day of rest, the stress is not laid in Scripture on the seventh day, but on the Sabbath, and that too whether the day observed as the Sabbath be the seventh or first day of the week.

But the Sabbath is only one day. On one day only God rested; one day only he blessed; one day only he set apart. That day was the

seventh, the rest day, the Sabbath; for sabbath means rest. To “remember the Sabbath day” is therefore to “remember the day of the rest.” “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day,” is to say, “Wherefore the Lord blessed the day of the rest,” which can be only one day, namely, the seventh. And God did lay “stress” upon the seventh day by a threefold weekly miracle of forty years. He showed that only one day was, or could be, his Sabbath, namely, the day of his rest. Exodus 16.

[3] After the resurrection of Christ the apostles and early Christians ceased to keep the seventh day as the Sabbath, but substituted the first day of the week, which was called the “Lord’s day.”

But there is not the slightest evidence in the Scripture that that is the case. The idea is preposterous that Christ observed the Sabbath in a “lawful” manner all his earth life, told his disciples to “follow me,” and then these disciples, without one word as to the sacredness of Sunday from his lips, departed from Christ’s express example and began the observance of a day which has no Biblical claim to sacredness whatever. These same disciples taught the observance of God’s holy law (Rom. 3: 31; 1 John 2: 3, 4; 5: 3; James 2: 8–12; Rev. 14: 12), and the necessity of following in Christ’s footsteps (1 Peter 2: 21; 1 John 2: 6). Where and when and how did Christ substitute the first day for the seventh? Where is the record? What the true Lord’s day is, is expressly told us in Mark 2: 27; Isa. 58: 13; Ex. 20: 8–11. Further, the seventh-day Sabbath was kept in the church, notwithstanding the apostasy, for more than four centuries after Christ.

[4] Jesus appeared after his resurrection to his followers gathered together for worship seven times. The first two were on the first day of the week, and merely it is not unreasonable to suppose that the other five were also on that day.

The first one was on the evening of the first day, when the day had passed. Why did he not meet earlier with them if the day were to be kept as sacred? The fact is the disciples did not believe him to be risen. See Mark 16: 14. The second recorded meeting was “after eight days” from the first, certainly not on the first day of the week. John 20: 26. The third was on a fishing occasion, which might have been Sunday. Our Presbyterian friend should not find fault with anyone for following piscatorial diversions on Sunday; for according to his above statement leaders of the primitive church on that day “went a-fishing,” and our Lord gave them success. The last meeting was forty days after his resurrection, on a Thursday, ten days before Pentecost. The whole Sunday argument is based on just such suppositions.

[5] The precepts and commandments which Jesus gave to his disciples during the forty days after his resurrection we learn from the acts and writings of these inspired men. One thing in particular they did by precept and example: they taught the churches which they organized to meet on the first day of the week for worship, an important part of which was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which seems conclusively to have been an injunction of Christ himself. As the essential elements of the Sabbath were transferred to the first day of the week it is of little moment whether the name was transferred or not.

But what “precepts and commandments” do we learn? Where are such ever mentioned? Jesus said before his death that he had given them God’s word (John 17: 8, 14), and on the cross he declared his work finished, which he came to do personally on earth. Nowhere by precept or example did the apostles teach the church to meet on the first day. The celebration of the Lord’s Supper was “an injunction of Christ himself,” but the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the first day was not. The time was left with them, and was sometimes daily. Acts 2: 46. The essential elements of the Sabbath were God’s rest, blessing, and sanctification on his part. Gen. 2: 2, 3. To man, it was a memorial of God as a Creator, and a sign of him as Recreator or Redeemer. Ex. 20: 8–11; Eze. 20: 12, 20. The resting of God could not be transferred to the first day of the week, because he did not rest that day, and his blessing and sanctification have not been transferred. And on man’s part there is nothing in connection with the first day which reveals to man God as Creator or Redeemer.

[6] As the work of redemption is more important than that of creation, so the Lord’s day is of greater importance than the Jewish Sabbath.

The work of redemption, of regeneration, of saving man, is a work of creation. It is creating a man anew in Christ Jesus, and is so called. See Eph. 2: 10; 4: 24; Col. 3: 10. The Sabbath is a memorial and a sign of both creations. God’s power in creation is pledged for man’s salvation. See the whole of Isaiah 40; Eze. 20: 12, 20.

[7] A direct command for the change of day is not essentially necessary, for the acts of Christ and his inspired followers are as authoritative as direct commands. If the principle is taught in the word it is all that is necessary.

By the above we may justify every error and dogma of the Papacy; and it is the principle now forsaken by many Protestants, who will inevitably be led back to the Church of Rome. Says Dowling:—

The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of the Protestants! nor is it of any account in the estimation of the genuine Protestant how early a doctrine originated, if it is not found in the Bible. . . . He who receives a single doctrine upon the mere authority of tradition, let him be called by what name he will, by so doing steps down from the Protestant rock, passes over the line which separates Protestantism from popery, and can give no valid reason why he should not receive all the earlier doctrines and ceremonies of Romanism upon the same authority.—History of Romanism, book 2, chap. 1.

Loyalty.

Loyalty to government, to God, is one of the demands of the hour, yet, sad it is, loyalty to government in these days is conspicuously lacking. Utterly regardless of right and duty in the past, the railroad corporations have enriched themselves at the country’s expense. Utterly regardless of right and duty, lawless strikers and rioters are destroying themselves at not only the railway’s expense, but at the expense of every branch of trade and industry, and in open and planned defiance of law and government. But loyalty to earthly government may not be expected of them when loyalty to divine government is wanting. There can be no loyalty without conscience; and there can be no conscience—no good conscience—where utter disregard for the principles of God’s word is prevalent. Loyalty to the principles of God’s government means loyalty to human government; and he who is not loyal to human government in the proper sphere of human government does not know the principles of God’s government.