REPLY TO SOME ANTI-SABBATH ARGUMENTS.
By Editor
BY inspiration of the Spirit, David says: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do His commandments." This fact may be cited as good reason for believing that men who disregard the law of God are not reliable expositors of His Word. A contributor to the Messenger, published in Ellsworth, Kan., in endeavoring to teach men that the Sabbath of the Lord is not to be observed by Christians, is obliged to place some strange constructions on the Scriptures. According to this expositor, we are not to base our decision as to the day of the Sabbath on the reason given in the second chapter of Genesis. But the Lord not only gives us the statement in verses 2 and 3 as the reason, but He repeats that same reason in His law, and afterward honors the day in His example when on earth. Again we are told that the period of time designated as a day in the first chapter of Genesis "was by no means the same as that on which we base our chronology." The author tells us that "a better translation of the original would be 'periods of time,'" etc. But none of the translations, all of which were made by the best scholarship of their time, so render the text. The reference to what geology proves is far from being evidence, as geology is made to prove almost anything, and nothing is more contradictory than the deductions of geologists. The days of Genesis 1 were days with evenings and mornings, and the same original word for day is used after the sun was instilled as the light-bearer, as is used for the days prior to that time. At any rate, we have the fifth and sixth days as solar days, which fixed the duration of days before the Sabbath was established, and the first Sabbath day, and therefore the Sabbath days thereafter, were measured by that rule. All this is demonstrated by the falling of the manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness. It is claimed that we do not know which is the seventh day now. But there will be no trouble on this score if we accept the testimony of the Scriptures. Moses knew which was the seventh day before he came to Sinai, as is shown in Exodus 16. The Lord knew which was the seventh day when He marked it and emphasized it by three miracles every week for forty years. After the Babylonian captivity, Ezra and Nehemiah knew which was the Lord's Sabbath, and, as the Jews never again turned to idol-worship, it is evident that they did not lose sight of the day, however much they may have perverted its observance. When Christ came He observed the same day the Jews did, altho not altogether in the same manner. We suppose that He knew the day, for He was Lord of the Sabbath day (Mark 2:28), and His disciples "rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56) while He rested in the tomb. At that time the first day of the week was the solar holiday of the pagans, and when, some centuries later, the first day was formally adopted by the Catholic Council of Laodicea as the sabbath, it was the next day after the Sabbath observed by the Jews and that class of Christians who were opposed to the union of church and state. And all along the line to the present time the days have been recognized without any dissent as to which was the first day and which the seventh day of the week. In the history of time there have been changes in the months and in the years, but these things did not cause any change in the week, and we have no record that there ever was any confusion in this respect—only as men averse to the law of God have endeavored to cause confusion. The Jews never have had any confusion regarding the identity of the seventh day, and Sunday observers never have had any difficulty in identifying the first day. At any rate, most of them are so sure of it that they are willing to sustain state laws for its enforcement. The perversion of Paul's testimony in Hebrews 4, calls for a word of comment. The author to whom we have referred, asserts that "the Sabbath rest of God after Creation, extends over the whole period of time in which we are now living." Now how could God have put a blessing upon a day because in it He had rested, when the day would not end for thousands of years yet to come? How could men have observed thousands of days within the day whose events they were to memorialize after that day was passed? The Lord did not bless and sanctify the seventh day till after He had rested on it, and, if that long day has not passed yet, then it has not yet been set apart for man's observance. Such absurdity could only be conceived in a desire to evade the truth. Paul says, "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." This is what God designed in the first place, and if man had remained faithful, he had it then. God ceased from His work as a finished work; He "rested" and "was refreshed" in the contemplation of it. But man fell, yet God did not give up His design, nor His commemorative rest-day. The plan of redemption came in, and the eternal rest was still a possibility. Man has failed over and over again, but God's purpose does not fail. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were given promises which they did not receive in this life. But the rest remaineth, and it will surely come to the faithful child of God. Israel could not enter in because of unbelief (Heb. 3:18, 19). "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." Chapter 4:11. Those who enter into that rest will be such as "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12. "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3:29. To cite Hebrews 4 as an argument against keeping the Sabbath of the Lord, is surely a wresting of the Scriptures to one's own hurt. See 2 Peter 3:15-18. Yes, the Christian is dead to sin, which is "the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4), and he is "dead to the law" in that Christ died for him, and he has accepted Christ as his Saviour from the penalty of the law. By faith he becomes obedient, and "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:1. But the law is not dead, for Christ came not to change "one jot or one tittle" of it (Matt. 5:17, 18), and Christ died that it might be "fulfilled in us." Rom. 8:3, 4. The wicked are condemned because they are not subject to it (verses 6-9). "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20; 7:7), and "where no law is, there is no transgression" (chapter 4:15; 5:13). Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, but He didn't rest that day; nor did He ever set apart that day for His disciples to rest. His activity on that day could not be commemorated by resting. Nor has He ever intimated that His resurrection "blessed that day above all others." Such an assertion is a clear case of imputing to the Lord what He hath not spoken. See Eze. 13:6, 7. His death and resurrection are memorialized in the ordinance of baptism. See Rom. 6:3-8; Col. 2:12-17. We are cited to verses 16 and 17 because they caution us not to revert to Jewish ceremonials. Well, the Sabbath that God established in Eden was not a ceremonial; it was a memorial of an accomplished fact. There is no parallel between the Sabbath and circumcision. The Jewish ceremonials pointed forward to Christ, and His advent ended them, ceremonial sabbaths and all. The fact of God's rest after Creation never can end, nor can its importance end, nor could the fact of His rest on the seventh day ever be changed to its having taken place on any other day. Our critic inquires, "Is it not the spirit of the law which is to be kept, as well as the letter?"—Adventists all admit that the spirit of the law must be obeyed, else it is not obedience at all. But no one can obey the spirit of any law by persistently violating its letter. It is only by the letter that the spirit can be known. When God says that a certain act must be done on a certain day, it is not obeying the spirit of the law to choose any time one pleases to do that act. The Israelites found that out to their sorrow, and others would do well to heed the many lessons to that effect "written for our learning." The spirit of the law of God is not in keeping any one day in seven, but in obeying the voice of the Lord, and keeping His "holy day" (Isa. 58:13, 14), for the reason that He Himself assigns. The contributor who assails Seventh-day Adventists through the Messenger, sets up "the writer's opinion" that it "makes no great difference" which day is observed, but that men, for convenience, have adopted the first day. We do not know how it is with this particular writer; but we know a great many men who hold to that "no-difference-which-day" theory, when it best answers their purpose, and they almost invariably advocate civil law to compel every one to observe the day set apart "for convenience." Bringing the law of God down to a matter of man's convenience, always has proved disastrous, and always will.