The Seventh-Day Sabbath

 

 

Twenty Reasons for Keeping Holy in Each Week,
The Seventh Day instead of the First Day

 

1. Because the Seventh Day was blessed and sanctified for a Sabbath, by God, immediately after the creation of the world, as a perpetual memorial of that wonderful work, and of His own resting from it; and because there is now as much need for man to remember God's creative work, and to enjoy a weekly rest, as ever there was. (See Gen. 2:2,3)

2. Because, there is evidence that the Seventh Day was observed from Adam to Moses, by Noah, Jacob, Joseph, and Job. (See Gen. 7:4,10; 8:10,12; 29: 27,28; 50:10; Job. 2:3)

3. Because the Seventh Day is a necessary part of the fourth commandment, given at Mount Sinai, graven on stone by the finger of God, and incorporated with the other nine precepts of the Decalogue, which are admitted to be moral in their nature, and perpetually binding. "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy." "The Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the Seventh Day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it." (See Ex. 20:8-11)

4. Because the Old Testament abounds with declarations God's blessing upon those who keep holy the Seventh Day, and of his vengeance upon those who profane it. (See Ex. 31:13-17; Neh. 13:17,18)

5. Because our Lord Jesus Christ enforced the claims of the law to the fullest extent, saying in regard to the code to which the Seventh Day belonged, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled;" and because He always kept holy the Seventh Day, in this doubtless "leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps." (See Matt. 5:18)

6. Because the holy women who had attended Jesus Christ at his death and burial, are expressly said to have “rested the Sabbath Day according to the commandment," (Luke 23:56) and because, though the narrative proceeds immediately to record the appearance of Jesus Christ, on the morning of the first day of the week, neither there nor elsewhere is one word said about a change of the Sabbath, or about the sabbatic observance of the First Day of the Week.

7. Because the Apostles of our Lord constantly kept the Seventh Day, of which there is abundant evidence in the Acts of the Apostles, and it is declared of Paul, that, “as his manner was," he went into the synagogue frequently on the Sabbath Day. (Compare Luke 4:16 with Acts 17:2; see also Acts 13:14, 42, 44, and 16:13)

8. Because Jesus Christ, foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem, warned his disciples to pray that their flight might not happen “on the Sabbath Day;" and as that event was to take place almost forty years after the resurrection of our Lord, it appears that the same Sabbath was to be then observed by his disciples. (See Matt. 24:20)

9. Because there is no other day of the week called by the name of “Sabbath," in all the Holy Scriptures, but the Seventh Day alone; and because, when “the First Day of the Week" is mentioned in the New Testament, it is always clearly distinguished from “the Sabbath."

10 Because not one of those passages which speak of the “First Day of the Week," records an event or transaction peculiar to the Sabbath.

11. Because when God had so carefully committed his Law to writing, had repeated his precepts throughout the prophetic books, and had left so many testimonies and examples of the Seventh Day Sabbath on His sacred records, it is most unreasonable to suppose that He would have repealed or changed one single article thereof, without recording it among the words of our Lord Jesus or His Apostles, in the writings of the New Testament.

12. Because the observance of the Moral Law, (without any exception from it) is constantly enjoined, in the writings of the Apostles; and one of them says that “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all," quoting at the same time the sixth and seventh commandments. (See Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; Eph. 6:2,3; and James 2:8-11)

13. Because the religious observance of the Seventh Day of the Week as the Sabbath, was constantly practiced by the primitive Christians, for three or four hundred years at least; and because, though it gradually fell into disuse, the neglect of the Sabbath was caused only by those corruptions of Christianity, which at length grew up into the grossest idolatry; so that the second commandment was in fact, and the fourth was in effect, abolished by an ignorant, superstitious, and tyrannical priesthood.

14. Because it was only through the superstitious observance of the anniversaries of saints and martyrs, and a multitude of other fasts and feasts, with which the simplicity of revealed religion was encumbered and overwhelmed, that the sabbatic observance of the Seventh Day went out of use; and not (in fact) by any real or pretended command of Christ or His apostles, nor at first by the express authority of any Pope or Council: for it was kept as a strict fast, for ages after it lost every other token of a holy day.

15. Because the leaders of the Reformation never claimed for the First Day the name of the Sabbath, and never enforced the observance of that day by any other authority than that of the Church.

16. Because it is obviously absurd—(and it is an objection often made by irreligious people)—that the observance of the First Day of the Week as the Sabbath; should be grounded on a divine precept which commands the observance, not of the First, but of the Seventh Day.

17. Because, if the fundamental principle of Protestantism be right and true, that “the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants," then the Seventh Day must be the true and only Sabbath of Protestants; for, unless that day of the week be kept, they have no scriptural Sabbath.

18. Because the pertinacious observance of the First Day of the Week, in the stead of the Seventh, has actually given occasion of great scandal to the Protestant faith; it has caused the Papists to declare that Protestants admit the authority of human tradition in matters of religion; and it has led to intolerance and persecution.

19. Because the observance of the First Day, and neglect of the Seventh, having been adopted partly in contempt of the Jews, has always laid a burden upon them, and presented an obstacle to their receiving Christianity, which ought to be removed.

20. Because the observance of the Seventh Day obeys God, honors the Protestant Principle, removes stumbling-blocks, and secures for us the presence and blessing of “the Lord of the Sabbath."

Plain Questions
Reader, be pleased to give a plain answer to each of these plain questions, without equivocation or mental reservation.

1. Did God, after He had finished the work of creation, “bless and sanctify" the seventh day of the week; or simply the seventh part of time, without reference to any particular day of the seven?

2. Did He not sanctify the very day in which He rested from his work? Was not that the last day of the seven? Did He sanctify any other?

3. WHY did He “bless and sanctify" the seventh day? Was it not because He rested on that day? Will this reason apply to any other day of the seven? Did He not work on EVERY other day? (See Gen.2:2, 3)

4. Is not God's example of resting on the seventh day enjoined upon us for imitation? (Ex. 20:8—11) Do we imitate Him, when we rest upon some other day than the one in which He rested?

5. Is it the special appointment of God which renders a day holy, or is it our own act? Is the day holy because we count it so, or because God has made it so?

6. When God enjoins us to count the Sabbath, “the holy of the Lord," (Isa. 58:13) is it not equivalent to telling us that He Himself has previously constituted it a holy day by blessing and sanctifying it? Is it any thing more than requiring us to reckon the day to possess that dignity which He has already conferred upon it?

7. If God's blessing does not rest upon one particularly specified day, to the exclusion of all others, and we are nevertheless required to keep a day holy, are we not required to do what is impossible? For how can we count a day to be holy, which God has not previously made so? (Compare Quest. 5)

8, If God's blessing did not rest upon one particularly specified day, could He challenge to Himself any propriety in one day more than in another? Yet in the Sabbath day He claims a special propriety; “My holy day." (Isa. 58:13)

9. Are we not commanded to refrain from labor in that very day which God once “blessed and sanctified," and thereby made holy time? “In IT thou shalt not do any work,” &c. Do we obey this command when we work all of that day, and make it the busiest day of all the seven?

10. If it be downright disobedience to set about our work on the seventh day, when God says, “in it thou shalt NOT do any work," can we think to make amends for this act of disobedience by ceasing from work on another day? Even the performance of a required duty will not make amends for another one neglected. How much less, then, the performance of something which is not required! “Who hath required this at your hand?"

11. Has God ever taken away the blessing which He once put upon the seventh day, and made that day a common or secular day?

12. Does not the reason of the blessing (See Quest. 3) possess all the cogency now that it ever did? Has it lost force by the lapse of time? And while the reason of an institution remains, does not the institution itself remain?

13. Was the reason of the blessing which God originally put upon the seventh day, founded upon any need that men then had of a Redeemer? Was it therefore to receive its accomplishment and fulfillment by the actual coming of the Redeemer? In what possible sense can it be said, that Jesus Christ fulfilled and made an end of this reason?

14. Has God ever said of the first day of the week, In it thou shalt not do any work? Has Christ ever said so? Have the apostles?

15. Is there any scriptural proof that Christ, or his apostles, or the Christian churches in the days of the apostles, refrained from labor on the first day of the week?

16. As there is no transgression where there is no law, (Rom. 4:15; John 3: 4) what sin is committed by working on the first day of the week?

17. Does not the Sabbatic Institution RESULT from the blessing and sanctifying of a particular day? Is not this the very thing in which it consists? How then is the institution separable from the day thus “blessed and sanctified"? How can it be separated, from that upon which its very existence depends?

18. If the very life and soul of the institution consist in the blessing which was once put upon a particular day, is it not idle to talk of the transfer of the institution to another day? If another day has been sanctified and blessed, then it is an entirely new institution, and not a transfer of the old.

19. Does not the law of the Sabbath require the weekly commemoration of that rest which God entered into after He had finished the work of creation? By what principle of law or logic, then, can that law be made to require the commemoration of the work of redemption?

20. If it be necessary that the work of redemption be commemorated weekly by a positive institution, must not the obligation so to commemorate it arise from some law which directly and specifically requires it? But when, instead of this, the attempt is made to derive the obligation from the Sabbath law, is it not a tacit acknowledgment that there is no law requiring the weekly commemoration of the work of redemption?

21. Does the Scripture ever apply the name, Sabbath, to the first day of the week? Even in the New Testament, where the term is used, is not the reference always to the seventh day?

22. If Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles a full thirty years after the death of Christ, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, still calls the seventh day of the week the Sabbath, can it be wrong in us to do so? (See Acts 13:14,42,44; 16:13; 17:1,2; 18:4) If this be the Inspired application of the term so many years after all the ceremonial institutions were nailed to the cross, is it not our duty to make the same use of the term now?

23. Is it not a manifest perversion of the scriptural use of terms, to take away the sacred name from the seventh day of the week, and give it to the first day?

24. When the first day of the week is so generally called the Sabbath, are not the common people thereby led to suppose that the Bible calls it so? Are they not thus grossly deceived?

25. If the name Sabbath were no longer applied to this day, and it should simply be called first day of the week, as in the Bible, is it not probable that it would soon lose its sacredness in the eyes of the people?

23. Is it possible, then, that God has not given the day a name sufficiently sacred to secure for it a religious regard, nor even guarded it with a law sufficient to prevent its desecration?

27. What then? HAS GOD LEFT HIS WORK FOR MAN TO MEND! IS IT NOT SAFE TO LEAVE THE DAY AS GOD HAS LEFT IT! “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor hath taught Him?" (Isa. 40:13) 

28. Are you very sure that by the Lord's day, (Rev. 1:10) is meant the first day of the week? Have you any Scripture proof of it? Have you any other proof of it than the testimony of those who are called the early Fathers?

29. If the testimony of the early Fathers is to be relied on, that the Lord's day means the first day of the week, ought not their testimony to be just as much relied on, as to the manner in which the primitive Christians observed the day?

20. If it were even certain that by the Lord's day the writer of the book of Revelations meant to designate the first day of the week, would it thence follow that it is a day sacred by divine appointment, any more than that the “Sabbath day's journey," (Acts 1:12) was a distance limited and prescribed by divine authority? If Luke could select the latter expression from the vocabulary of human tradition, without intending to sanction it as being of divine origin, could not John do the same with regard to the former expression?

31. Do the Fathers, or any one of them, inform us that the Lord's day was observed by abstinence from labor?—that it was observed as the Sabbath? Mark the question. It is not, was the day observed, simply, but, was it observed as the Sabbath?

32. Is there not an important distinction between the Sabbath and a religious festival? Does not the word Sabbath mean rest? Can any day, therefore, be called a Sabbath day, which is not a day of rest from ordinary labor?

33. Does a religious festival require any thing more than the commemoration of some important event, allowing the time not occupied in the public celebration of it to be spent in labor or amusement? Is not this precisely the manner in which the first day of the week was observed, according to the testimony of the ancient Fathers?

34. Though the observance of the first day of the week as a religious festival be in itself innocent, (Rom. 14: 5) so long as it is not made a pretext for dispensing with an express law of God, (Matt. 15: 6) yet do you find it any where in the word of God commanded as a duty?

35. Do you believe that a Sabbath, in the true and proper sense of the term; namely, a day of rest from all ordinary labor, is necessary and indispensable to the wellbeing of mankind? If so, do you honestly suppose that God would set it aside, and have its place supplied by nothing more than a religious festival?

36. Is it not wicked to uphold a course which makes the commandment of God of none effect? (Matt. 15:1-9; Mark 7:1-1)

Reader carefully consider the following questions, together with the Scripture references. Answer them as you would if you stood at the gates of death. Do not trifle with the Holy Spirit of God, by wresting his word from its obvious meaning. Let conscience be unfettered; and act, as fully realizing that "THOU, GOD, SEEST ME."

A Dialog
Sabbatarian. Did Jehovah ever sanctify one day above another?
Minister. He did.

S. And what day was that?
M. The seventh.

S. When?
M. When He finished his creative work.

S. Where?
M. In Eden.

S. On whom was it obligatory?
M. On our first parents, and all their posterity.

S. Did He ever unsanctify that day?
M. No.

S. Did He ever sanctify the first, or any other day than the seventh?
M. Not that I know of.

S Then do not those who neglect the seventh day, take away something from the word of God? And do not those who keep the first day add to that word? Read the threatenings of the Lord against such: “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto Him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Rev. 22:18)

Write Dan at path2prayer@gmail.com or look at path2prayer.com for more information. Initially developed by the American Sabbath Tract Society.