2528.-The Sabbath Day by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 10, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 24.

2528.—The Sabbath Day.

By Editor

Which day is the Sabbath day, Saturday or Sunday, and why? M. F. M.

Neither one. The Sabbath of the Lord is the seventh day. God's day begins at sunset, and ends at sunset. This is shown in the first chapter of Genesis, and also in Mark 1:32 and in Neh. 13:19. The common civil day begins at midnight, and ends at midnight. Therefore, as the days are not synchronous, neither Sunday nor Saturday can be wholly the Sabbath of the Lord. The Sabbath of the Lord begins at sunset of the sixth day, and lasts until sunset of the seventh day. The first day of the week is considered by all, Sunday. Inasmuch as Sunday begins at 12:00 o'clock Saturday night, it is, on the average, at least six hours removed from the Sabbath of the Lord.

The query will probably arise, Do we know that the seventh day from Friday at sunset, till Saturday at sunset, is the seventh day of the Bible? In reply we would say that we have every reason to believe it to be the seventh day. First, it would be unreasonable for the Lord to set apart a day to be kept holy, demand that men should keep it, and then permit the knowledge of it to be hidden from them. This is not like God. The record of the making of the Sabbath is found in Gen. 2:2, 3. Twenty-five hundred years after, a command was given to keep it, based on the same identical reasons. Ex. 20:8-10. Previous to the giving of this command, the Sabbath was known. Exodus 16. By a threefold weekly miracle for forty years the Lord marked the definite day, so that for forty years the people of God could keep no other day for the Sabbath, save the seventh day.

When Jesus died upon the cross, the Inspired Record states that the holy women kept the Sabbath "according to the commandment." Luke 23:56. Therefore, we have the identical Sabbath day of the Lord brought down to the time of our Saviour's death on the cross. Since that time there has been no question whatever among the nations of the earth, or chronologists, regarding the seventh day. The seventh day of that time is the seventh day of now, and the first day of that time is the first day of now. Therefore, whatever loss of knowledge may have come to the world during the patriarchal ages, or in those periods of which we have no history, it matters not. The Lord Himself has clearly and definitely fixed the day so that men may know if they desire.