THAT "SIGN SABBATH." by Clarence K. Redfield

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 26, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 42.

THAT "SIGN SABBATH."

By Clarence K. Redfield

BY CLARENCE K. REDFIELD.

AT the present time Dr. S. W. Gamble is placing a great deal of stress in his anti-Sabbath lectures, on what he calls the "Sign Sabbath of the Jews." As some who hear him are led into believing that the Sabbath kept by the children of Israel was not the Sabbath instituted by Jehovah at creation, it may be well to spend a little time in studying this proposition of the doctor's by the light of God's Word.

The doctor begins his argument by quoting Neh. 9: 13, 14. "Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments; and madest known unto them Thy holy Sabbath, and commandest them commandments, and statutes, and a law, by the hand of Moses Thy servant." "This Sabbath," the doctor tells us, "was the creation Sabbath." Certainly it was, for the only Sabbath ever claimed by Jehovah as His holy Sabbath was the one whose institution by Him is recorded in Genesis.

The doctor lays especial stress on the words "madest known." He tells us that these words prove conclusively that the true Sabbath had become lost, and that at this time the Israelites were keeping a spurious Sabbath that they had invented for themselves on leaving Egypt. If so, this Sabbath received the approval and seal of God in the withholding of the manna on that day. Read Ex. 16: 22-30. This Sabbath, which the doctor calls "spurious," he tells us was Saturday. If so, Jehovah must have once approved of a Saturday Sabbath apart from the one which the doctor calls the "sign Sabbath." That the Lord would set the seal of His approval on a sabbath that was not His Sabbath is hardly within the realm of probability.

But the doctor tells us that on Mount Sinai was the true creation Sabbath made known to the children of Israel. This, he says, is the Sabbath of Ex. 20: 8-11, and "fell upon Sunday." With the day of the week this present article has nothing to do. Soon after the Sabbath was made known, Moses ascended the mount again, and received the law written upon the tables of stone. This law the doctor is pleased to call the Jewish Decalogue, and is, he says, entirely different from the law given in Exodus 20. This Decalogue, the doctor says, we will find in Deuteronomy 5. The only difference he finds between these two decalogues is in the fourth precept. He argues that this must refer to a different day than the Sabbath of Ex. 20: 8-11, and grows quite facetious over the idea that unless this decalogue differs from the other, Moses wasted forty days of valuable time in going up on the mount to receive it. If he had but read the fourth and fifth verses of the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, he would have found that the Decalogue repeated here was the one spoken in the midst of the fire of Sinai,—"Jehovah spake with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire, . . . saying, I am Jehovah thy God," etc.

So, if a different Sabbath was commanded than the one spoken on Mount Sinai, it is not recorded in Deuteronomy 5. Where, then, is it?

Dr. Gamble tells us that this "sign Sabbath" is the one spoken of in Exodus 31, and that this is not the creation Sabbath. In proof of this he quotes, beginning with the thirteenth verse: "Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily ye shall keep My Sabbaths; . . . It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever;" and there he stops. Why not finish the seventeenth verse? "For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed."

Therefore this Sabbath was the creation Sabbath. The Sabbath of Exodus 20 was the creation Sabbath. The Sabbath of Deuteronomy 5 was the same as the one of Exodus 20, and, therefore, the creation Sabbath. Where, then, have we an account of the institution of, or the commandment to observe, another weekly Sabbath than the creation Sabbath?—Nowhere in God's Word.

Another weak point in Dr. Gamble's argument: He says the creation Sabbath was given to the Israelites to remove from them the error of keeping Saturday. Now, I have shown that God honored the seventh day of the week in the matter of the giving of manna. Now, if this Sabbath was good enough for that, and a new Sabbath was to be given from Mount Sinai forty days later, what need for the Sabbath of Exodus 20 to be made known at all. One could grow as facetious over this matter as the doctor himself does in regard to the same matter being repeated to Moses. But it is not a humorous matter. It is serious. Will we keep God's commandments, or will we wrest the Scriptures from their meaning, yea, even falsify them, in order to follow the traditions of men and honor Satan's spurious sabbath?

Genesee, Idaho.