Confusion Among the Wise Men.
By Editor
WHEN the Lord said he would destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent, it was not because wisdom and prudence are not good and commendable. They are good qualities when put to right uses. It was when the "wise and prudent" became self-exalted and vain, that the Lord withheld from them the treasures of his truth, and "revealed them unto babes." When a vexed question was presented to Jesus, he said, "From the beginning it was not so." He set aside those rules which were based entirely on man's wrong-doing, or the hardness of their hearts, and required them to regard as of importance that which God ordained from the beginning, before the hardness of human hearts had perverted the ordinances of Jehovah. There is no precept to which these words of our Saviour will apply more forcibly than to that concerning the Sabbath. Every fact to which the Sabbath institution stands related comes down to us "from the beginning." In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth; he rested the seventh day; for this reason he blessed and sanctified the seventh day—the rest day. Under the head of "A word for the Sabbath," the Christian at Work publishes an article from a correspondent which we here copy. True, the editor gives a gentle check to the misguided zeal of his correspondent, but comes far short of doing justice to the subject. "A VENERABLE friend, who has nearly completed his 85th year, sends us the following from Semiahmoo, Washington Territory :— "We are not required to be more holy on the Sabbath than on other days, but we are commanded to REST, and we must rest on the same day or create confusion, for the rest day is for holy meetings. In the first week God blessed the seventh DAY, but in the fourth WORD, He blessed the Sabbath day, not the seventh day, and required us "to remember the SABBATH day to keep it holy." All the septenary rites of the Old Testament that terminate on the number eight are typical of some important day in Messiah's reign. Why not all these rites terminate on the seventh day if it was to be the new Sabbath? (See Eze. xliii. 26, 27.) When the altar of this Christian temple was purified seven days, then on the EIGHTH DAY and so forward the offerings should be made. Eighth day and first day are the same. See Lev. xxiii 15, where the law fixes the pentecost on the first day of the week. Why not on the seventh if it was to be the new Sabbath? Christ rose from the dead on the first day; He preached but one sermon on earth after his resurrection, and that was on the first day of the week. He met His disciples and blessed them on the Resurrection day, and on the next first day. Many say that the first day is not called Sabbath in the New Testament. Dr. Jacobus says, "The Evangelists called the first day SABBATH, and by no other name so I think." But let us test, say, Matt. xxviii. 1 ; "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary," etc. The Greek of the verse reads thus: "Opse de Sabbatoon, te epiphouskouse eis mian Sabbatoon," came Mary, etc. Here in the Greek, Sabbath occurs twice in the plural form; whereas our translation gives us one Sabbath in the singular, and for the other Sabbath, "First day of the week," a phrase that has no Sabbath in it, nor any religious principle or obligation. This verse might have been rendered: "In the end of the seventh-day Sabbaths, as the light began to shine into the first of the Christian Sabbaths" (it being the first day of the week) supplied, or, "In the end of the Jewish Sabbaths, as the light began to shine into the first of the Christian Sabbaths, it being the first day of the week, came Mary," etc. This would fairly express the teaching of the text, and there are seven other places in the New Testament that need correction, viz. : John xx. 1, 19; Mark xvi. 2, 9; Luke xxiv. 1; Acts xx. 7, and I. Cor. xvi. 2. Five inspired Bible writers agree in calling the first day of the week Sabbath eight times. The Apostolic Church met on the first day for worship, and so on for the first sixteen centuries, or until King James's Translation, when we got all "First day of the week" and no Sabbath." "Our venerable correspondent is, we think, inclined to strain literalism a little too much. No good will come of attempting to prove more than either the New Testament or ecclesiastical history will warrant. We do not know what Dr. Jacobus held on this question; but his words are these in his commentary on Matt. xxviii. 1: "The first day of the week—an unusual phrase—literally, 'One of the Sabbaths.' The same phrase and no other is used by each of the evangelists in their mention of this first Christian Sabbath. This is not quite as our correspondent represents. But whatever may be thought of our friend's reasoning, we do want more Sabbath observance; God commands rest one day in seven. The Church has adopted the first day as commemorative of the Lord's resurrection. There is no divine command to observe the first day, but the custom of the Church gives it a force, which, with the beauty of its significance, should secure its observance wherever Christ is preached." Now let us notice some of the manifest errors; it would be difficult to notice them all.
1. He makes a distinction between the seventh day and the Sabbath, which is not justified by the Scriptures. Sabbath means rest; on the seventh day and on it alone God rested; therefore it, and it alone is the rest day. A day in which the Lord did not rest cannot be the Lord's rest day.
2. To justify the making of this distinction he has two acts of blessing—one of blessing the seventh day, and one of blessing the Sabbath day. This is a fallacy altogether too glaring to stand. The fourth commandment refers to the facts of record in Gen. 1 and 2, and it refers to nothing else. The blessing, according to Gen. 1:3, and Ex. 20:11, is only one event. Sanctify and hallow in the two texts are the same word in the original.
3. There is no eighth day of the week; therefore all mentions of the eighth day have no reference to any particular day of the week. There was an eighth from a certain event which preceded, as the eighth day of a feast, but the day of the week upon which this eighth fell depended upon the day of the week upon which the feast commenced. But as the feasts were located on certain days of the month, they could not be located on any particular day of the week. At this age of the world a man must be "willingly ignorant" not to know this.
4. He persists in declaring that those texts which speak of the first day of the week should be translated Sabbaths, and not first day of the week. But if they do not mention the first day of the week, how does he know that they refer to the first day of the week? Take Acts 20:7, for an example. He says this refers to the first day of the week, but says also the translation needs correcting. Let us correct it and try his reasoning. "Now upon the Sabbath when the disciples came together." If this is a proper translation, why does he say it was upon the first day of the week? Sensible of his difficulty, he wishes to make a most important addition to the inspired record; he wishes it to be translated both Sabbath and first day of the week in the same text! Here is something entirely new. If it were as valuable as it is novel, it would be worth the writing of the whole article. No comment can do justice to such a preposterous claim. We pass it by for this reason.
5. He not only wishes to have the same word translated both Sabbath and first day of the week in the same text, but wishes to have translated out of it the important adjunct of "Christian Sabbath." Verily, the world has been slow to learn what a fund of Sunday argument may be drawn from such a simple text.
6. He makes a most important admission in the declaration that the phrase "first day of the week," has no Sabbath in it, nor any religious principle nor obligation. From our infancy we were taught the opposite of this; but years ago, in studying on this subject, we learned that it is even so, that there is no Sabbath, nor religious principle, nor obligation, in the Sunday. Why will men persist in trying to put them there, seeing that the word of God never did?
7. We will not further expose the fallacy of his pretended criticisms of the Greek original, as that point has been thoroughly examined in the article on Sabbaton in the and the two preceding numbers of the SIGNS.
The caution of the editor is timely:—"No good will come of attempting to prove more than either the New Testament or ecclesiastical history will warrant." If this were realized, accepted, and acted upon, the bulk of Sunday arguments and "Christian-Sabbath" literature would dwindle into insignificant proportions.
The above article, in all its weakness and absurdity, is as good as the generality of arguments in favor of the Sunday. We publish it as a specimen. It is even better for that side of the question, than a more lengthy article by the editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate, which a friend has lately sent to us.
We stand upon the declaration of the editor of the Christian at Work,—"There is no divine command to observe the seventh day." Ye who would "fear God and keep his commandments" do not forget this. "The customs of the church" give all the force to Sunday which it ever had; but this custom is not only without a divine command, but in opposition to the divine command. Truly, "the customs of the people are vain," as the prophet says.