The Change of the Sabbath

John’s Testimony

John speaks as follows: “The first day of the week comes Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and sees the stone taken away from the sepulcher.” “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and says unto them, Peace be unto you.” John 20:1, 19. These words were written by the “beloved disciple” more than sixty years after the resurrection of our Lord, after nearly all the other disciples who were personally acquainted with our Savior had passed away. If he had been keeping Sunday as the only true Sabbath, or giving it tiny divine honor during this time, who can believe he would not have indicated it in some way? But he does not; he simply calls it by its usual secular title,-the one by which it had been known for four thousand years. He attaches no sacredness to it whatever. He does not call it the Sabbath or the Lord’s day, and gives no command for its observance, not a hint of any superiority above the working days; nor do any of these writers. ChSa 46.4

There are certain claims put forth by first-day writers concerning this last-mentioned instance, which we will notice in due time. We know of no first-day advocate who claims to find any evidence of Sunday sacredness, or of a change of the Sabbath, in any of these six instances where the first day of the week is mentioned, except the one last quoted. If the Sabbath was changed, is this not surprising? If it was ever changed by divine authority, here is the point where all admit the change must have been wrought. Yet none of the Christian historians who give any record of the events where this change is supposed to have occurred, mention such a change, or give a single hint of it. They wrote at different periods for about two-thirds of a century, and give an account of all the events in Christ’s life and all of his teachings which the Holy Spirit thought necessary for the proper instruction of the generations to come, but failed entirely to mention or notice any change of the Sabbath. On the contrary, they state positively, over and over, that that day was still the Sabbath which had been since God instituted it. ChSa 47.1