IS SATURDAY THE ORIGINAL SEVENTH DAY?
By S.
To very many persons the Sabbath truth comes as an unwelcome truth. They look upon it as a cross which they would prefer not to carry, as a difficulty from which they must find some loophole of escape, not realizing the importance of the blessing which the Lord has promised to those who obey. One of the first possible avenues of escape toward which such persons flee is the possibility that it may be impossible to tell at the present time just which day is the seventh day. They do not realize that in that very thing they are really questioning the justice, and wisdom, and love of God; for He would not command men to do a thing that it was impossible for them to do; He would not establish an institution which it was impossible to locate, and then hold men responsible for its proper observance. But all that is included in the accusation; all that is included even in the doubt. If there were any probability of a doubt arising during any generation of the past as to whether the regular weekly cycle was being observed, God has covered even that possibility from time to time by placing His divine approval upon His own day at different periods in the world’s history. If it were possible that the day was lost track of between the creation and the time of Abraham, God had a man there who was, according to the inspired declaration, keeping His commandments, His statutes, and His laws. See Gen. 26:5. He who declares that the record of the definite Sabbath day had been lost by that time must contradict the inspired record. God has declared that Abraham was keeping His commandments at the time that he lived, and the commandments of God include the observance of that Sabbath upon which God Himself rested, upon which He placed His blessing, and which He sanctified for His own service. If there were any doubt of the identification of the institution up to the time of Abraham, God’s declaration concerning Abraham’s course has settled that. The true Sabbath was known and observed in Abraham’s time by at least Abraham and his family. Four hundred years later, according to Usher’s chronology, the Sabbath law was given on Mount Sinai. Surely, if there had been any doubt about the matter up to that time, it was now dissipated. God knew which day was His, if man had forgotten. But the people also knew without any question which day was meant by the commandment. A penalty was attached to the transgression of the Sabbath commandment. Ex. 35:2. There was no question about the definite day at that time. They all knew which it was; God had commanded its observance, and there could be no doubt about it then. But even before this command went forth from Sinai, the day had been pointed out in a manner that none could misunderstand. This is the record concerning it: “Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no. 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. . . . And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they harkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms and stunk; and Moses was wroth with them. . . . 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. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord has said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord; bake that which ye will bake to-day, and neither that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is the Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws?” Ex. 6:4-28.
This constituted a threefold miracle for the designation of the Sabbath day, entirely aside from the miracle of the giving of the manna itself. First, there was to be twice as much given on the sixth day as on any other day, in order that the people might gather twice the usual quantity. This would last them over the Sabbath. Second, that which was kept over from the sixth to the seventh day did not breed worms or decay as that did which was kept over from the gatherings of any other day. This showed the direct interposition of the Lord in the interests of Sabbath observance and of a definite day. Third, there was no manna found on the Sabbath or seventh day. A Forty-year Object Lesson.
This threefold miracle, designating the definite day, and removing all excuse for its non-observance, was not a matter of merely one week or of one month, or of one year; but was continued during all the forty years of their wanderings in the wilderness. As no one can accuse God of not knowing which was the definite seventh day, so no one can accuse Him of not making known that definite Sabbath day to the people whom He brought out of the land of Egypt. There can be no possible doubt that they kept the right day there. Even if they had forgotten the day while in Egyptian bondage, which is altogether unlikely, they knew it now and kept it now. Had there been any confusion whatever before this, the people were certainly set right now; but there is no evidence to indicate that they had lost track of the days, nor any reason to suppose they had, more than to suppose we now are unable to calculate the succession of the days. Evidence From the Heathen World.
Another thought in regard to the improbability of the people losing their reckoning of the days of the week. History records that the day now known as Sunday was a day set apart by the pagan world for the worship of the sun. It is from that fact that it derives its name. No one has ever questioned that the heathen world was able to count the days correctly from one sun’s day to another sun’s day. They made much of the observance of that day, so much in fact that one writer has designated it “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times.” The Jewish people were always surrounded by peoples who worshiped the sun. The heathen world worshiped the sun on the sun’s day. So, if the Jews had forgotten which was the true seventh day, the practises of their heathen neighbors would always have set them right. There were the two institutions traveling down through the ages from time immemorial, the one the worship of Jehovah on the day that He had set apart for His worship, and the other the worship of the sun on the day dedicated to the sun’s worship. If the heathen had made a miscount and begun to use the seventh day for their idolatrous ceremonies, the Jews would quickly have set them right; had the Jews begun to perform their worship on the day dedicated to the idolatrics of the heathen, the heathen would have quickly set them right by their own practise. But no such mistake was ever made, and the two institutions have traveled down side by side to the present time. Farther than that, in no instance in history has even one community, to say nothing of a state or nation, all mistaken the day at the same time. Once in a while some one has been known to forget which day was the Sabbath or which day was Sunday, but he was very quickly set right by his own neighbors, and always such individuals are deeply chagrined that they should make such a blunder. We pass down fifteen hundred years to the time of Christ. There is not much reason to suppose that any discrepancy crept into this period of Jewish history. But if it had, there was Christ Himself, the Author of the institution, to set matters right. We find Him regularly in the synagog “as His custom was,” observing the day He had taught His people to observe from Creation. He was the Rock that followed them (1 Cor. 10:4) through all their experiences, and now we find Him with them in the flesh, observing the Sabbath with them in their accustomed places of worship. He knew all things; He was there to lead them into all truth, to teach them the precepts of His Father. Had they been wrong, He would have set them right at that time. The day He recognized as the Sabbath was certainly the true Sabbath from the beginning. Thus we know that the Jews in the time of Christ were keeping the true seventh day in true succession from the beginning. The Jews have kept their reckoning from that time to this in all parts of the world where they have been driven. There has been no break in their reckoning, nor in the reckoning of Christians or peoples who were neither Jews nor Christians. The reckoning of each of these classes agrees with that of all the others. If5Christians are keeping Sunday in true succession from the Cross, how can they deny the identity of the seventh day also from the Cross till this time. The first day and the seventh are mentioned in immediate connection in the record of the crucifixion and resurrection; they have traveled side by side ever since. So no reasonable person can say that there has been any loss of the day's identity between the Crucifixion and the present time. In addition to all this, God has had his witnesses from the Crucifixion to the present time who have kept the true seventh day as the Sabbath. This is a matter of record. Thus has every prop been removed from under the specious plea that we can not tell which is the true seventh day at the present time. The identity of the day is certain; but it is no more certain than is the blessing which the Lord has pronounced upon those who honor Him by honoring His holy day. Here is the promised blessing: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. 58:13, 14. S.