For All Time by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 2, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 14.

For All Time.

By Editor

A correspondent writes us:—

"The Adventists are always trying to prove something that nobody disputes, that is, that the seventh day was the Jewish Sabbath. They don't try to prove that the seventh day was the day Christ chose for the Christian dispensation, which they know is impossible; for the Lord's day, or the first day of the week, is [was] the one used by the Christians of the apostolic day, and by the Christian world ever since. Christ established that day by his resurrection and example."

Surely the writer of the above has read most carelessly what Seventh-day Adventists have written. Let us briefly inform him:—

1. Seventh-day Adventists are never trying to prove that the seventh day was the "Jewish Sabbath;" for they do not believe it. The Bible does not say that the seventh day was the Jewish Sabbath, but, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God" (Ex. 20:10); "My [the Lord's] holy day" (Isa. 58:13), of which day it is said "the Son of man is Lord" (Mark 2:28). The Lord's own day, therefore, as taught by the Lord's own word, is the seventh-day Sabbath.

2. That day was the Sabbath day "in the beginning," "for man," to continue as long as man should exist. "Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them forever." Ps. 119:152. "All his commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever." Ps. 111:7, 8. "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law." See Matt. 5:17, 18; Isa. 51:6, 7; Luke 16:17. The Sabbath of the Lord is therefore forever, for all time, for all dispensations. There is no more necessity of proving that Christ chose the seventh-day Sabbath for the Christian dispensation than there is that he chose any other commandment, or taught the worship of another God. Nevertheless, he did teach the integrity of God's law in its every jot and tittle in both word and act, in instruction and example.

3. He nowhere kept the first day as a Sabbath, and nowhere taught others to observe it. Neither did his apostles. For what is there claimed to be a new institution both precept and example are sadly wanting.

4. The Sunday was not kept by the apostles as a sabbath, or holy day, nor by the early Christians till they turned back to heathen times. (See Gal. 4:8-11.) The first day was never called the Sabbath till many centuries after Christ, nor the Lord's day till two hundred years after Christ. There was no law for its observance till it was made by the heathen Constantine, in A.D. 321.

5. Christ's resurrection was not a matter of a day, but of a moment, and it is memorialized not by a day but a new life, a momentary life, in Christ Jesus, the resurrection life, which begins with the baptism of the Christian. See Rom. 6:3-6.

6. As shown above, the only Lord's day according to the Bible is the seventh day of the week.

If our correspondent, and many others, knew Christ as the revelation of God, as the personification of God's law, as the Lord our Righteousness, as the only Saviour from sin, which is the transgression of the law, they would say, with the psalmist, "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day," and with the beloved disciple, "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous." He who knows the new covenant has the law of God written in his heart, a blessed witness of God's love.