"Remember the Sabbath Day"
By A. S. Booth
But Which Day Is It, the First or the Seventh?
THE New Testament teaches the binding claims of the fourth or Sabbath commandment as much as any of the other commandments of the law of God. The life of Christ was the law of God magnified and made honorable. Isa. 42: 21. The attitude that He sustained to the law in keeping and teaching the commands of the Father is set forth for an example to His followers. All the endorsements of the Master to the law of God have as much to do with the fourth commandment as with the other nine. As Christians, we have no more right to eliminate the fourth commandment from the endorsements common to all the commandments of the Lord than has the thief, the murderer, the adulterer, or any other commandment breaker, to expunge the commandments that condemn him. Jesus emphatically declared, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law." Matt. 5: 17. Again, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16: 17. In view of this fact, Christ says: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5: 19. To the young man who desired to know what to do to have life, the Master admonished, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Matt. 19: 17. We have no more right to say that this instruction does not apply to the fourth commandment, than others have to say that the special command which condemns them is not included in the statement of our Saviour. Christ was a faithful Sabbath keeper. He said, "I have kept My Father's commandments." John 15: 10. One of His Father's commandments is the fourth. It was His custom to attend and participate in the Sabbath services. Luke 4: 16-21. He was continually instructing the people concerning proper Sabbath observance. Christ's instruction to His disciples relative to the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem, fixed the thought in their minds and hearts to pray that their flight from the city should not occur on the Sabbath day. Matt. 24: 20. Thus they would not be compelled to desecrate the Sabbath by making their escape from the city upon that day. Jerusalem was destroyed A. D. 70. That was at least thirty-nine years after the resurrection. In this instruction, the Lord surely emphasized the command, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Matthew was a leader in the Christian church. He wrote his Gospel more than thirty years after the resurrection. If the first day of the week was the Sabbath at that time, he did not know it; for he calls the resurrection day merely the first day of the week, yet he speaks of the seventh day as the Sabbath. We read that "the next day, that followed the day of the preparation"—the preparation day was Friday, the sixth day, the day of the crucifixion—the priests went to Pilate to secure permission to set a watch at the sepulcher. "So they went, and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch. In the end of the Sabbath [the seventh day], as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher." Matt. 27: 62, 66; 28: 1. We acknowledge, therefore, that inspiration thus tells us just what day was the Sabbath thirty years after the resurrection. Mark wrote his Gospel almost thirty-five years after the resurrection. He calls the seventh day the Sabbath, and the day of the resurrection simply the first day of the week. He also makes clear that the Sabbath was past before the first day began. Mark says: "And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath. . . . And when the Sabbath was past, . . . very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun." Mark 15: 42; 16: 1, 2. Here the three days are mentioned. The Gospel of Mark was inspired. Inspiration therefore tells us in this instance, thirty-five years after the resurrection, just which day is the Sabbath. Luke, in writing his Gospel, some twenty-seven years after the resurrection, says: "And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with Him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how His3body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher." Luke 23: 54-56; 24: 1. Thus we see that if the first day was the Sabbath, Luke did not know it. He called the day simply the first day of the week, but he called the seventh day the Sabbath. It therefore follows that Jesus, Matthew, Mark, and Luke in these instances clearly teach the observance of the fourth commandment, which reads: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work," etc. The first day of the week is mentioned only eight times in the New Testament, and is always spoken of as merely the first day of the week. The seventh day is mentioned fifty-nine times, and always called the Sabbath. While there is only one mention, in the New Testament, of a special appointed gathering on the first day, there are records of eighty-four gatherings on the seventh day. Neither Christ nor His disciples ever said one word in favor of Sunday as a holy day. There is no record, in the New Testament, that the expression "first day" ever passed His lips; yet we have His endorsement of His Father's law, His example in Sabbath keeping, and the command itself. We should settle all points of doctrine, and all moral questions, by the plain, positive instruction of the word of God. Until we find somewhere in the Bible the command that says, "The first day [or some other day] is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," let us remember the positive injunction of God: "Remember the Sabbath day. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath." All that men may say will not alter the reading of the commandments in the Judgment. We must meet them there. Christ will be our Judge then. If we fail to meet the demands of the law now, how will we fare in the Judgment?