p. 839 | SABBATH UNIFORMITY by Lee S. Wheeler

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 12, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 53.

SABBATH UNIFORMITY.

By Lee S. Wheeler

Who Is Lord of the Sabbath?

(Concluded.)

If any day in seven is all that is required by the commandment, then the one to whom it was given must have been authorized to appoint his own day. Then God must have waited for man to do this before he blessed any day for that purpose. Otherwise man's day might not be the blessed one; or else the blessing must be transferable at the will of man, so that the day could be changed at the resurrection. In fact, if the Sabbath is to be God's rest day (for that is all it means), but under man's authority, then God must wait until the day is appointed by man, and man has fixed upon, or separated, a day for this purpose; for when God has rested, sabbatized, it is done forever, and choice and change are cut off, as the Lord's Sabbath day cannot be any other than the Lord's rest day. Then man must have determined the Lord's rest day, instead of God himself. And this again would be to place man above God. But the Lord avoided all this by himself appointing the day; for that is what the word "sanctify" means in Gen. 2:3. "Sanctify, from the Hebrew kadash, to pronounce holy, to appoint."—Gesenius. "To separate, set apart."—Clarke. "It is by this term that positive appointment of the Sabbath as a day of rest to man is expressed."—Professor Bush, Notes on Gen. 2:3. By this act God restricted mankind to that particular day, which now contained a blessing, and holy rest, not transferable, and compelled man to begin the week where he did or come into conflict with the divine arrangement.

But if God had not made such appointment, to whom would it be left, the Jews? They did not exist till twenty-four hundred years later. Did he leave the institution unfinished over two millenniums of the time of its obligation, waiting for the Jews? It is absurd. No appointment of the day was granted the Jews; but the weekly Sabbath upon the seventh day of the week was from the first spoken of as a present, existing institution; thus: "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." Ex. 16:23. "For today is a Sabbath." Verse 25. "The seventh day, which is the Sabbath." Verse 26.

All this was before the giving of the law, and the same is noticeable when the ten commandments were written—"The seventh day is the Sabbath" (Ex. 20:10, 11), yet enjoined with reference to future time: "Remember . . . to keep it holy." "Six days shalt thou labor," but then not—and the seventh shall be a Sabbath unto you—"but the seventh day is the Sabbath." But the sabbaths and holy days peculiar to the Jews, even at the giving of those laws, are spoken of in the future tense: "It shall be unto you a Sabbath." Lev. 23:32. "On the first day [of the feast] shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath." Verse 39. "In the seventh year shall be a Sabbath." Lev. 25:4. These distinctions are made in the same chapter, showing that the one was a day of past appointment, while the other was a new institution.

The authority to appoint the day of the Sabbath could not be given to nations, for no nation was in existence when it was instituted; nor would there ever have been any had sin not entered. They are the results of the disunion, of the curse; but all flesh would have been one people, as it will finally be. Zech. 14:9; John 10:16. If it were left to them, it would be left to the results of sin to determine and appoint holy Sabbaths; for civil powers are to protect society, and without sin society would have no more need of them than the heavenly society. Whatever was done was done then, when the Sabbath was made, and if nations do not get it from thence, then they can of right have nothing to do with it.

The church has no such authority; for it did not rise in time to get it. At that time there was no church nor need of one any more than in heaven among the angels. Without the fall man would not have needed salvation in the way he now obtains it. Consequently there would have been no church and no creeds, and dogmas of ecclesiasticism would have bound discordant factions, but innocence and immaculate power would have held them to one head, one King, even Christ.

If neither national power nor churches could have existed in that primeval state, in which and for which the Sabbath was made, then if the one to whom it was given were left to appoint the day for observance, it would fall to the lot of man, not as nations or churches but as individuals, for there was only one man at that time, and to him it was given, because it was made for mankind, and he was a man; Τὸ σάββατον δια τον ανθρωπον ἐγενετο—"The Sabbath was made for the man." Mark 2:27. Then it is not the property of any combination or body of men. They have no exclusive right to its regulation.

It was given to Adam, and hence to his descendants, in the same way that life was, namely, to each individual. If left to anyone to appoint the day, it would be the individual, each individual. Then there would be universal disorder and confusion; the God of order would become the god of confusion. No church could expect all its members to be alike in practice. Every man would be left to his convenience, and no one but a tyrant could think of requiring the stranger within his gates to keep a day just because he did.

There would be no concord of Christian worship. It would destroy Christian fellowship, and produce religious anarchy, which is antichristian. "The intent of the lawmaker is the law," and this intent must have been uniformity, and God's glory in uniformity, which brings us to the fact so many try to evade, viz., that

THE COMMANDMENT DEMANDS A PARTICULAR DAY,

otherwise there could be no uniformity. If there is no particular day meant by it, there can be no uniformity of rest enforced by it. The one depends upon the other, and if the Sabbath precept does not limit the day, it is defective and imperfect,—a serious charge against God's law, which he himself declares is perfect (Ps. 19:7; James 1:25); yet it is the only conclusion, if the commandment does not restrict us to the particular day, because it is indispensable to a uniformity of practice to have the command restrictive. Men have tried to patch up the law of the Lord, by putting his command into their church books, and incorporating the particular day. But if God's law is sufficient without it, why not their catechisms? If he did not put it in, why dare they, when in the first organization of the church it was strictly forbidden to "add to" or "diminish" from the commandments of the Lord? Deut. 4:2.

Again, if it were not the intent of the Law-giver, why should the particular day be given? And if God stated his restrictive requirement, how dare they remove it to another day? "Who hath known the mind of the Lord" when it is not revealed? and if it is revealed, who will disregard it?

For four thousand years the people of God saw only one meaning in the commandment, and were united in supposing it to explicitly require a particular day, but after the falling away of the church, and its mixture with paganism, they discovered (?) that the commandment is not explicit (?) in requiring a particular day, and proceed to insert the only one they have,—Sunday,—long venerated by Mother Rome, a kind of teraphim hidden away among the stuff when they came out from her,—behold Rachel hath stolen her father's gods, and is sitting upon them. It is placed in the doctrinal church books under the fourth commandment, but it belongs to Rome.

Did not God know the necessity of uniformity, and that mankind must be restricted to some particular day to insure it? and knowing it did he not provide for it? "Behold the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light;" for what king would make a Sabbath law, and leave the people to the day of their own choice, a law that did not demand "any day in particular," that was "not particular about the day," etc., and then attempt to enforce it on the theory of "any one day in seven"? What would be thought of one accused of desecrating the first day of the week, who would plead not guilty on the ground that the law did not require any particular first day, but only one first day in seven, and that he held Monday to be the first day of the week? Yet men will so misconstrue the law of the God of heaven and earth. Any power that should appoint a day of the week to be remembered and kept, in its numerical order, must also fix the beginning of the week, without which there could be no numerical order. And no man, nor church, nor nation has the right to change God's arrangement to make the first day the seventh. To do so would be to "put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter," and, instead of keeping his rest day (Sabbath), make another of our own; instead of keeping his, render ours in its stead. Reader, have you disposed of God's rest day for your own, or one made by the Catholic Church? God will require it of you again.