THE LORD'S DAY by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 50.

THE LORD'S DAY.

By W. N. G.

Has the Lord a day—a specific recurrent day of twenty-four hours—that he calls his own? We have no means of answering this question excepting as we may get the answer from God himself. And we are to learn from him through his word: Then what says the Bible?

We find in the Scriptures frequent mention of the "day of the Lord," but this expression invariably refers to a time of judgment, and not to a day recurring at regular intervals. For instance: "The day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty, and upon everyone that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low." Isa. 2:12. "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Mal. 4:5.

The New Testament references to the day of the Lord convey the same idea as those of the Old: "But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." 1 Thess. 5:1-4. See, also, 2 Peter 3:9-13. Other scriptures, in both the Old and New Testaments, use the expression "the day of the Lord" in the same sense.

The phrase "the Lord's day" occurs but once in the Bible, Rev. 1:10: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet." Here the reference is evidently to a specific day, but neither the text nor the context gives any clue to the day of the week. This fact would indicate that at the time of writing it was generally understood what day of the week was the Lord's day. Otherwise such indefinite mention of the day on which the vision occurred would be superfluous, would convey no information. But we must look elsewhere for identification of the Lord's day; and in doing so we find that the word of God is very explicit on the subject.

Going back to the beginning, we read that six days were occupied in the creation of the world. "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." Gen. 2:2, 3. Now that which God sanctifies is set apart for his own glory, to be used in his service; it is his own. This is shown by Num. 8:17: "For all the firstborn of the children of Israel are mine, both man and beast; on the day that I smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for myself." So, in the beginning, while Adam and Eve were yet in Eden, before the fall, God chose and set apart the seventh day as his own. Beyond question, it was then the Lord's day.

Some 2,500 years afterward God delivered his people from Egyptian bondage, and rehearsed unto them his law from Mount Sinai. They were now free, at liberty to serve God, and the law which they could not observe while in bondage to a heathen king was repeated to them by the Lord's own voice, and engraved on stone. Here was reiterated the fact that the seventh day was claimed by the Lord:—

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."

About 800 years later God spoke by the prophet Isaiah. Through this inspired writer he still claims the Sabbath as his day, calling it (chap. 58:13) "my holy day." Still the seventh day is the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is the Lord's day.

At a later day, during the captivity in Babylon, the Lord speaks through the prophet Ezekiel: "I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20:19, 20. It is still in the "statute" that the Sabbath day is the Lord's.

Coming on about 700 years, we find the Son of God a man upon the earth. Does he proclaim any change in the matter of the statutory day? "Think not," says he, "that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. . . . Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matt. 5:17, 18. Again, he says, "I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." John 15:10. And again, "The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:28.

At the death and resurrection of Christ the seventh day of the week was still the "Sabbath day according to the commandment." Luke 23:56. The Sabbath, which the Lord had previously designated as "my holy day," is the day preceding the first day of the week: "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher." Matt. 28:1.

So far there is no disputing that the seventh day of the week is the Lord's day. Has the Lord made any change? Inasmuch as Christ said that he came not to change the law, and that not a jot or tittle of the law should pass till heaven and earth should pass, it is positively settled that he made no change. When we consider how carefully God regarded his "holy day" up to that time, how for forty years in the wilderness he marked its sacred hours by a threefold weekly miracle, and how its desecration caused the chastisement of his people and the destruction of his beloved city, should we not expect that the choice of another day would be accompanied by equally marked tokens of jealous regard?

Would we not expect that the new day would be formally blessed and sanctified, and that it would be formally placed in the heart of the moral law in lieu of the discarded day? Surely God is not less careful of his law and of his memorial days than men are of theirs. He was very jealous of such things in former dispensations; shall we say that he is less mindful of sacred institutions in these times? No, he is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."

Then, in the absence of any reference to a change of the Lord's day in the word of God, it is safe to say that he has made no change. In the absence of any record of his authorizing anyone else to make such a change, it is clear that he never so authorized anyone. There is a prophecy that a certain power would "think to change times and laws" (Dan. 7:25), but that power is represented as being antagonistic to God and to his people: "He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High." And this same power is represented by the apostle Paul as "that man of sin," the "son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped." And he is "that Wicked, . . . whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth." See 2 Thess. 2:3-12.

As God has not chosen any other day than that blessed and sanctified in the beginning, nor authorized anyone to make a change for him, on any pretext whatever, it is certain that no change has been made. As he has told us that a wicked and presumptuous power would "think" to do a work of that kind, we are certainly justified in ascribing all attempts to change the statutory Lord's day to that power which the Lord has told us would attempt to make such a change. And, notwithstanding the pious pretension of such a change, notwithstanding the plausible reason for the alleged change, notwithstanding the popularity of the dogma, the word of the Lord emphatically teaches us that the seventh day of the week is the "Sabbath of the Lord," the "holy of the Lord," the "Lord's day." . . . W. N. G.