REASONS FOR SUNDAY OBSERVANCE.
By L. A. P.
IT is astonishing and sometimes sadly amusing to note some of the reasons given to support the keeping of Sunday as a day of rest. Not always, tho, do upholders of the sacredness of that day put forth in so brief a space so much error as is found in the following words delivered by the Rev. William Morris Kincaid, in his Easter sermon in the Central Union Church, Honolulu, H. I. In the course of the address the gentleman said:— At the beginning of the Christian era the Jewish people celebrated the last day of the week as their religious festival day, while the pagan world celebrated the day sacred to the sun as theirs. But the followers of Christ could not keep as a festive day the day in which their Lord had lain in the tomb, nor pass by without rejoicing the day on which He rose from that tomb; so, without ecclesiastical law, without divine authority, or prophetic utterance, saying, Thou shalt change the day, the day was changed; the old day was swept away, and a new one came in. It seems almost incredible that the above could have been spoken soberly, and yet we must assume that it was, appearing as it does in the columns of one of Honolulu’s largest dailies, among reports of the previous day’s events. Note some of the thoughts advanced. The Jewish “religious festival day” is placed on a level with the pagan festival of Sunday. The Bible instruction concerning the Sabbath in nowise warrants this language. In the first place, it was not “their”—the Jews’—day; it was the rest day of Jehovah. Second, while it was to be a “delight” (Isa. 58:13), a day of true happiness, it was not a gala day, nor was it ever designed to be such, as was the pagan Sunday, whose “sacredness” was the sacredness of its celebrants only, and they were idolaters. The Sunday was their day; the Sabbath was and is the Lord’s. To assert that the followers of Christ could not—did not desire to—rest henceforth on the sacred Sabbath of Jehovah and of Christ, the6day set apart and made holy by the Author of holiness then and now, is more than assumption. Inasmuch as all their lifetime the disciples had regarded as holy the seventh day, and their Master, its Author, had Himself honored it, and no intimation had fallen from His divine lips that it should cease to be loved and honored, to say that after the resurrection of Christ the disciples changed the day—swept away the old—"without ecclesiastical law, without divine authority or prophetic utterance, saying, Thou shalt change the day," is to charge them with having no realization whatever or appreciation of divine things. It is to charge them with being utterly devoid of any fear or love of God, and with having received into their hearts not one principle of righteousness taught and exemplified by their Master. It is to charge them with having deliberately placed themselves "above all that is called God," for He changes not, and that He could not lightly regard violation of His law had just been manifest by the death of Jesus, who died to witness to its perpetuity and sacredness. This language charges the early disciples of Jesus with doing just what the great apostasy—the man of sin (2 Thess. 2:3, 4)—attempted to do in the centuries that followed, and in which he has, apparently, been so successful. "Without divine authority, or prophetic utterance, saying, Thou shalt change the day," the apostate Roman Church has attempted to sweep away the Sabbath of Jehovah, and institute in its place the "day sacred to the sun," borrowed from the pagans. But the disciples made no such change, as all Bible students know. First, they could not, for they had no such authority; secondly, they did not attempt it, for they loved and feared God. Instead, therefore, of following the example of the disciples, observers of the first day, or Sunday sabbath, are following—perhaps unwittingly—the behests of that great system of iniquity which the Word of God calls Babylon the great. Rev. 18:2. We do not believe Mr. Kincaid nor any honest follower of Jesus will be pleased to be entangled in the meshes of that system, where the logic of his statements places him. No, the Sabbath of Jehovah still stands. It is not changed, and God is calling for a reformation on the part of those who have wandered from it. To every one, consciously or otherwise, honoring any institution not of His planting, He says, "Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Rev. 18:4. Come out, and rejoice in honoring Christ, the Creator, by resting on the day sanctified by Him as His holy Sabbath day, and let that rest be a type of the calm rest of your soul in Christ your Redeemer. L. A. P.