CHANGE OF THE SABBATH

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1880

CHANGE OF THE SABBATH.

"Why are we keeping Sunday instead of Saturday?" is a question asked by thousands of children, youth, and people of mature years; and the answer generally given is, that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week.

It is true that the majority of Christians regard the first day either as a festival in honor of Christ's resurrection, or as a sabbath, or as both; but the important question is, who made this change? It is frequently said that either Christ or his apostles authorized it, but where is such authority to be found? If either abrogated the Sabbath and commanded the observance of Sunday for the purpose of worship, or of Sabbath-keeping, or of a festival, such abrogation and command ought to appear in the New Testament. One seeks in vain for these statements. Rather do we find our Lord saying, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."

In none of the interviews with his disciples, during forty days after his resurrection, did Christ say one word about the sacredness of the first day. In Acts 20 : 7, after the words, "upon the first day of the week," Luke did not insert the qualifying phrase, "which is the Christian Sabbath;" nor in the sentence, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day" (Rev. 1 : 10), did John add, "which is the first day of the week," nor any other expression to indicate that it was the first day. There is no intimation of the sanctity of this day from any known custom of the apostles.

All Scripture failing for a support for making Sunday a holy day, how is it that it has so generally displaced the seventh day? The answer to this question is found in the heathen custom of worshiping the sun on the first day, and in the prejudice of nominal Christians against the Jews.

The first law for Sunday observance was enacted by Constantine, then a Pagan emperor, who "designated it by its astrological or heathen title, Dies Solis," and applied to it the epithet venerabilis, which had "reference to the rites performed on that day in honor of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras."

Sir William Domville says: "Centuries of the Christian era passed away before Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 321."

The Roman Catholic Church commands Sunday to be kept holy, not by authority of the Bible, but upon her own authority. She accuses Protestants of inconsistency in keeping Sunday, and profaning Saturday, while professing to follow the Scriptures as their only rule of faith which commands the keeping of Saturday. (See "Doctrinal Catechism" and Milner's "End of Religious Controversy.") Thus the change of the Sabbath is to be found in the edict of a Pagan emperor, and in the decretals of the Church of Rome, and not in the word of God. Sabbath Memorial.