02.01. The Sabbath: The Statement of the Question

CHAPTER I
THE STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION The question is one of importance, as it concerns a matter of obedience to God. If God has required us to keep one day out of every seven, and if blessings and penalties depend upon our obedience or disobedience, it well becomes us to know whether we are in the way of blessing or cursing. All through the Old Testament, after the giving the law from Sinai, the Sabbath is made binding upon the people of Israel. Not only so, but it was enforced by very severe penalties. Like other features of that law, men must observe it or die. Found guilty of violating this law, the rebel must surely be put to death. Even picking up sticks on that holy day was a capital offence. No one at­tempts to deny these facts.

Again, it is just as evident that the seventh day was the Sabbath day as that there was a Sabbath day required to be kept by anyone. The commandment was not to keep one day out of seven, but to keep the seventh day. If the Israelite had kept the first day of the week, with all the solemnity of the law, but not the seventh, he would have been regarded as a violator of the law, and punished accordingly. Indeed, he might have observed all the other six, but if he had not remem­bered the seventh to keep it holy, he would have been regarded as a transgressor of the law. This also is acknowledged by everyone who has read the Scriptures on the subject.

If the Sabbath is now binding, are the penalties then belong­ing to the institution, yet to be inflicted upon the violator of the law? If not, when were these penalties removed, and by whom? If those penalties have been removed, are there any others come to take their place? And if there are other penal­ties, not found in the Law of Moses, where can we find them? If there are any changes in the severity of the penalties, or in the rigor of the law, how can we assure ourselves of the fact? If this law of the Sabbath is still binding, and yet without penalties for its violation, or blessings for its faithful observance, then it may be a matter of small moment to many per­sons, whether they keep it or not. If the blessing pronounced upon faithfulness to this requirement is eternal life, and the curse to be visited on the disobedient eternal death, where can we find the statement which will warrant our faith?

There is now a very earnest effort being made by Advent­ists and Seventh-Day Baptists to bring about a return to Sab­bath-keeping, according to the law. If I have understood them correctly their positions are as follows:

Now, beyond all question, if their theory is right, their practice cannot be wrong. I understand the religious world generally to agree with their views concerning the giving of that law, as to form, time and extent. Indeed, I am not aware that either of the four positions taken by Sabbatarians is dissented from by the average religious teacher of to-day. Still, the practice is very distinct. The whole religious world, aside from the parties already named, keep the first day of the week instead of the seventh, which was required to be observed by the law.

Here is a manifest inconsistency, and no man can deny it. If God required us to keep the seventh day of the week, keeping the first will not be obeying that command. And it is vain to talk of keeping the spirit of a law when we deliberately violate its letter. It is impossible to be religiously right and scripturally wrong at the same time. If God commanded all men to keep the seventh day of the week, and has never changed or removed that law, then we must either keep the seventh day or violate the commandment of God. This is so self-evident that to elaborate or repeat it would indicate a want of confidence in my readers.

Some have been heard to say, however, that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. But the Bible does not know anything of any such a change. No inspired man ever called the first day of the week the Sabbath! It was centuries after the last apostle was dead before men began to speak of keeping the Sabbath by observing the first day.

It will be said, however, that the Sabbath, as required of the Israelite, could not be observed in cold climates, and hence the rigor of the law must necessarily have been somewhat abated. But if any such necessity has existed, He who gave the law has surely known it quite as well as any of His creatures, and has therefore, somewhere in His word, removed the severities of the law, or, He has not intended it to be regarded in these cold cli­mates. But if it was not intended for these northern countries then it was not meant to be universal. Hence all that may be legitimately argued from the fact of a needed change in the severities of the fourth command, is that it was not intended for persons living in cold climates. No one can change a law in any feature, except He who gave it. And if God had made any such a change, such amending enactment could be found somewhere in the Bible. But as no such enactment can be found, the law remains as it was.

I have heard a peculiar argument against the Sabbath to the effect that all men cannot observe the Sabbath at the same time; that when it is daylight on one side of the globe, it is night on the other. Hence, while one half of the world are keeping the Sabbath, the other part will be busily at work. They illustrate by starting two men around the world from the same place, but in opposite directions. With one the days get shorter, and with the other, they grow longer, so that the man going east has gained a day on his neighbor, at their next meeting; hence one will be keeping one day for Sabbath and the other will be keep­ing the next. And some ingenious person has made a reckon­ing, showing clearly enough, to himself, that we are really now keeping the seventh, and not the first day. All this seems to me very much like surrendering the question. These men say—without intending it—that the Sabbath keepers are right in their demands, and that it is necessary for us to find some way of excusing ourselves. Whatever difficulties there may be found in keeping the Sabbath in other countries or under other circum­stances than could be found in Palestine, at the time it was intended for the Israelites, may show that it was not given to other peoples, but can have no effect to prove that the law has in any sense changed.

Again it is argued that Jesus taught the superiority, not only of man, but also of the beast, to the strict demands of the Sab­bath. It is claimed that Jesus violated this law when occasion required, and justified himself in doing so on the ground that human want was of more importance than the letter of the law. But no man has yet been able to find a single instance in which Jesus violated any declaration given by Moses. He could not do so after the statement we find in Mat 5:17-19 :

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled 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." No one could be the author of that language and then violate that law himself without gross inconsistency, such as would unfit him for a public teacher.

Christ neither violated the law nor     winked at such conduct on the part of anyone else. No case has yet been reported, and no such teaching can be found as coming from Him.

Sabbatarians are claiming, and with some show of reason, that a large majority of the Protestant clergy believe just as they do respecting the sanctity of the Sabbath, and that, if their popularity and salaries were not endangered, would advocate the keeping of the seventh day just as they do. They conclude this from their admissions, as before stated, which legitimately bind them to the law of the Sabbath. They further claim, too that the devotion of the Christian world to the first day of the week, is a superstition, which has no higher origin than the edict of a heathen king.

Now to my mind, the question resolves itself into this: Are we now under law of which the Sabbath was a part, or is the Sabbath now finding on Christians? For certain it is, if we are to keep the Sabbath, then we are bound to observe the seventh day of the week. No matter how the law was changed, unless Jehovah changed it, if it is yet binding, it is our Place to keep it to the end of life, unless sooner released from its obligations by Him who gave it.