p. 14 | A SEVENTH PART OF TIME by W. H. Littlejohn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1881

A SEVENTH PART OF TIME.

By W. H. Littlejohn

BY ELD. W. H. LITTLEJOHN.

"The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." Ex. 20 : 10.

PERHAPS there is no view more generally entertained by those who are arrayed against the Sabbath of the Lord than that which is commonly called the "seventh-part-of-time theory." Its friends, while denouncing Antinomianism, and insisting upon the universal and perpetual obligation of the law of God, so construe the fourth commandment as to make it simply require the observance of one day in seven, leaving the individual to determine which this shall be.

It is a matter of no little surprise that they, while loud in their condemnation of all who, as they claim, seek to abridge their liberty by compelling them to observe the last day of the week to the exclusion of all others, do, nevertheless, without exception, unite in keeping the first. The query naturally arises, Why is this so? why no greater diversity in practice? And when inquired of respecting this matter, the invariable reply is that, for the sake of the common good, they have concluded to forego their personal right of choice, and conform to an excellent custom resting upon the necessity of a uniform day of rest, and designating Sunday as the same.

It never seems to have occurred to their minds that, the moment they assume this position, they virtually abandon their own exposition of the Sabbath law. Nevertheless, this is undeniably true; for, by their own confession, there is in society a necessity for a uniform day of rest. Now, therefore, if they are right in this, as they unquestionably are, one of two things is certain: Either God did comprehend the necessities of the race and provide for them by instituting a definite Sabbath day, to be kept by all, or else his law is imperfect, in that it does not meet the requirements of those for whom it was made.

Leaving these, therefore, to determine for themselves which horn of the dilemma they will take, i. e., whether they will still insist upon holding on to an explanation of the commandment which involves the dishonor of God; or, conclude that he who knows the end from the beginning has, in his law, exactly met the necessities of his creatures, and that the whole difficulty has arisen, and their part, through a misconception of the meaning of the statute which he has given, we turn to examine it for ourselves. While doing so, as this is a matter of no small moment, since it is one upon which eternal interests hang, we invite the prayerful attention of all who are earnestly seeking for truth, while we offer what seems to us to be a few conclusive arguments that the opinion in question is utterly unsound.

First, we submit that it is not in accordance with the obvious meaning of the commandment. In proof of this, we might advert to the fact that the history of the Jews from Sinai to the cross not only fails to furnish a single act in the performance of which they proceeded upon the hypothesis that the day of the Sabbath of the decalogue was variable at pleasure; but, on the contrary, it is full of the most convincing proof that they ever regarded it as fixed and immovable.

As an evidence of this, from many others of like nature which might be adduced, take, if you please, those sieges of Jerusalem in which they persisted in their customary regard for their holy day so far as to refuse to employ its sacred hours in preventing their enemies from advancing their works against the place, thereby enabling them to destroy both it and them; a calamity which might have been altogether averted, had it occurred to them that the Sabbath law was so accommodative that while one portion of them were fulfilling its requirements by resting on one day, another might be fighting in the field at the same time, providing only that they should meet its requirements by resting on some other one of the seven days of the week.

We conclude, therefore, that inasmuch as the history of the Jews, covering a range of fifteen hundred years, and characterized by all the vicissitudes of war and peace, fails to furnish a single instance in which one of their number ventured, either by word or deed, to question the fact that the last day of the week, and it alone, was the one which Jehovah claimed as his own, we shall be safe in deciding that this was the judgment of the whole, without exception; a fact by no means insignificant, when we consider that to them were committed the sacred oracles, after having been written out upon tables of stone, in their own tongue, with which they must have been more familiar than we can be. And, strange as it may appear, the verdict which they have given in the premises has received the unqualified approval of the Christian world from the commencement of this dispensation down to within two hundred and seventy-five years of our time.

For it was not until the year 1595, and more than three thousand years this side the giving of the law, that, when pressed to the wall by Papists, on the charge that Protestants were observing Sunday in obedience to the decree of the Catholic church, and in contravention of the commandment of the Lord, Nicholas Bound made the first successful effort to bring into favorable notice the doctrine that all which its phraseology demands is the keeping of any one of the seven days of the week. This being true, we find, after all, that those who have prided themselves so much upon the idea that their version meets with the approval of the majority, are, nevertheless, when we take into account the opinions of those who have lived in the past, vastly in the minority.

Turning, then, from the opinions of men, and the bearing which they have upon this subject, after having seen that there has ever been a wonderful concurrence among them in the belief that the commandment is so worded as to leave no reasonable doubt in the mind of the unprejudiced, that it pointed unavoidably to one day, and only one, as the Sabbath, the observance of which it was given to enforce, let us seek elsewhere for additional proof that this modern view finds no warrant in the word of God, and never could have gained credence had it not been for the necessity that something of the kind should be invented to defend a practice which could not be justified in any other manner.

We naturally recur to the commandment itself, in the hope that it will afford all the light which is necessary to enable us to reach a correct conclusion. It reads as follows:—

"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 man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 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."

A glance reveals the fact that the whole discussion must turn upon the meaning of the expression, "the seventh day;" for that is plainly called "the Sabbath," and in it we are forbidden to do any work. In the opinion of our opponents, this is applied indiscriminately to any twenty-four hours in the cycle of the week which we may see fit to call the Sabbath, and devote to the worship of God.

But the question with which we have to deal is not what they now understand this language to mean, but what was the impression which it then conveyed to the minds of those to whom it was given; for, as language is variable in its meaning, it is universally conceded that laws must be interpreted in accordance with the signification of their phraseology when they were enacted. How did the men who stood at the base of Sinai view the question? Was the idea imparted to them by the words in controversy the same as that held by our friends? or was the language as determinate to them as it would be to us should the Lord declare in so many words that Saturday is the Sabbath?

Fortunately, this question can be settled beyond peradventure. The sixteenth chapter of the book of Exodus seems to have been thrown in almost for the express purpose of furnishing a commentary upon this subject. The events which it records transpired but thirty-three days before the trembling multitude stood at the base of the quaking mount, a period of time altogether too short to admit of change in the use of language, or a revolution in the customs of the nation. Whatever appellation, therefore, was given to the days of the week at the commencement of this period, would apply equally well at its close. But in the brief record under consideration, mention is made three times of the sixth day of the week, and four times of the seventh. Here, then, is an excellent opportunity for testing the merits of the rival theories.

If, in the cases alluded to, we shall find that the terms, "sixth day" and "seventh day," there signified respectively one-sixth and one-seventh part of time, the latter was undeniably employed in that sense in the decalogue a little more than a month later. But if, on the contrary, it shall appear that they were made use of in this case because they were the titles commonly given to the last two days of the week, then they retained this signification when the Lord employed the last of them in marking his rest day. The verses in which they occur read as follows: "And it shall come to pass that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." Verse 5. "And it came to pass that, on the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses." Verse 22. "See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath; therefore, he giveth you, on the sixth day, the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." Verse 29. For the use of the term, "seventh day," see verse 29, as copied above, also the following: "Six days shall ye gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none." Verse 26. "And it came to pass that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none." Verse 27. "So the people rested on the seventh day." Verse 30.

Now, consistency demands that if the words, "the seventh day," used in the above, are to be construed as meaning one day in seven, then the kindred expression, "the sixth day," must mean one day in six. But this would make nonsense of the whole thing; because, according to the context, it was to be the preparation before the Sabbath, and on it, twice as much manna was to be gathered and prepared as on other occasions, for the reason that on the seventh day there was to be none. Who does not see, however, that, admitting the construction in question, the whole plan would have proved a failure, inasmuch as the preparation occurred as often as once in every six days, while the Sabbath transpired only once in seven days; so that at the end of the second week, they would have been separated by one whole day; at that of the third, by two; of the fourth, by three; and so on, until the cycle of the week was completed, when they would occur at one and the same time, thus representing God as so far blundering, through a misconception of a plain mathematical principle, that six out of seven of the miracles which he worked for the preservation of food for the Sabbath were rendered ineffectual by the fact that they occurred either too soon or too late to meet the requirements of the case.

It is evident, therefore, that the day spoken of in the above as the sixth was so called, not because it represented one-sixth part of time, but for the reason that it was the distinctive appellation by which it was known from the other days of the week. That this is so, is abundantly attested by the fact which is brought to view in verse 22, wherein it appears that the people, so far from having any doubt as to when the proper time had arrived for the gathering of the double portion of manna, entered upon this work, without exception, at one and the same time, since all of the rulers came and reported the same to Moses.

From this stand-point, therefore, we are enabled to construct the whole Jewish week, giving to each day its proper name; for, if the day under consideration was the sixth, it must have been preceded by five others, each following in consecutive order, and receiving its proper numerical title from its relation to the first. It was not only true that this was preceded by five others, but according to the statement found in verse 23, it was followed by the Sabbath; for Moses, from the stand-point of the sixth day, says, "To-morrow is the Sabbath." And, in verse 26, he makes the statement that it also has the additional signification of "the seventh day;" and is further characterized by the fact that in it there was to be no manna: a thing which was not true of any of the others. These facts which were familiar to the minds of all, not only serve to locate it unmistakably in the wilderness of Sin, but, as they were equally true a little farther on, when the voice of the Lord was heard in the mount, and when his finger traced upon the marble the words, "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," must have marked it with moral certainty as the one to which reference was made.