p. 800 | DANGEROUS MISNOMERS by Editor

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

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

"DANGEROUS MISNOMERS."

By Editor

THE Occident of October 11 has an article under the above heading, in which is set forth some forcible truths. The especial term criticised is "applied Christianity" as often used at the present day, in designating labor for others by all classes, Christian or otherwise, in flower missions, asylums, reformatories, fresh air-funds, etc., just as though the regeneration of man, the cleansing from sin, and the keeping from sin were not applied Christianity just as truly as the works above spoken of. The writer says: "The very fact that the term has been coined and become so universally used in religious and secular writing and speaking, proves the existence of a semblance of Christian activity without the spirit of Christ. In these degenerate days a man or woman may be active in many forms of Christian benevolence, and yet may be destitute of Christian faith; and society recognizes the fact by accepting and using a term which necessarily implies it. 'Faith without works is dead,' says the apostle; but a modern school of aesthetic and sentimental religionists lays down the dictum that either can live by itself, independent of the other."

The above is true, and it denotes a dangerous tendency of the age. We wish to speak of another "misnomer," one in which the error is much more clearly manifest from a Bible point of view. We refer to the application of the term Sabbath to the first day of the week. Every intelligent reader of the Bible knows that the Sabbath is the God-given name of the seventh day of the septenary, or weekly, cycle. It is the last and crowning day of the week, to which all the other days look forward; and therefore they were numbered, "One into the Sabbath [that is, proceeding on to the Sabbath], Second into the Sabbath, Third into the Sabbath, Fourth into the Sabbath, Fifth into the Sabbath, Eve of the Holy Sabbath, Sabbath."

The seventh day of the week is not the first day. Sunday is the first day; the day commonly called Saturday is the seventh day, so far as Roman time concurs with Bible time. The seventh day in the word of God is known by no other name; the first day of the week is ever known as the first day, having no sacred title; and yet eminent ministers and prominent religious papers speak of Sunday as "the Sabbath," "the holy Sabbath," "the holy day of the Lord," "the Lord's day," when there is not a scintilla of Bible evidence to support it. The first day of the week, except in the matter of its twenty-four-hour duration, has not one single characteristic of the Bible Sabbath. In the words of the writer quoted above we appeal to our Protestant brethren: "Would it not be well . . . to return to the simplicity of truth and the reality of things?"