The Change of the Sabbath

“The Lord’s Day” Revelation 1:10

We next notice a text which is claimed by first-day observers as evidence in behalf of Sunday, but which we claim affords excellent proof in behalf of the Lord’s holy Sabbath. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.” ChSa 74.3

This language is supposed to have been written in the year AD. 96, sixty-five years after the resurrection of Christ. It is claimed that by the term “Lord’s day” is meant the first day of the week, the day on which our Savior rose from the dead. But the very point to be proved is assumed. We want evidence of a substantial character that the first day of the week is the “Lord’s day.” Not a hint from the Scriptures is ever cited to prove this important point. No sacred writer ever calls it such. In every case where it is mentioned, as we have seen in eight instances, it has the same secular title. St. John himself, in writing his Gospel, some two or three years later than the book of Revelation was written, as is generally supposed, calls it twice “the first day of the week.” John 20:1, 19. If he had intended the first day of the week to be understood by the term “Lord’s day,” why did he not call it so still later when he wrote his Gospel? ChSa 75.1

No good reason can be assigned for calling it the Lord’s day. The Lord never intimated any more regard for it than for any other secular day. The fact that he rose from the dead on it does not entitle it to any higher regard from us than the sixth day, the day of his crucifixion, the one on which our salvation was purchased by his spilt blood. Or Thursday, the day on which he ascended, to become our high priest. Not one well authenticated instance can be found where Sunday was ever called the Lord’s day before the year AD. 194, just about one hundred years later than the time when this was written by St. John,-a point where Christianity had become much corrupted. ChSa 75.2

We confidently claim that this “Lord’s day” is God’s holy Sabbath day. For four thousand years it had been constantly recognized as a day peculiarly sacred to the Lord. He rested upon it, and set it apart to a holy use, placing his blessing upon it. Genesis 2:3. In the law of God he said, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.... The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.... The Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11. The prophet says, “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day.” Isaiah 58:13. Surely this language unmistakably identifies which day is “the Lord’s day.” It can be none other than the one he has always claimed. ChSa 75.3

But it is sometimes objected that in the original Greek, the term “Lord” used in the text refers to Christ, and not to God the Father; that it is not Jehovah’s day, but a special day which Christ claims as his own. Very well; of what day does Christ claim to be the Lord? “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28. Is not the day of which Christ says he is Lord, the Lord’s day? So we believe. Does he anywhere say he is Lord of the first day of the week? Not a text is ever quoted by any one to show it. We therefore conclude that the day on which St. John had this heavenly vision was the Lord’s holy Sabbath, the seventh day. Let it be noticed by all that at the very close of the first century of the Christian era, the Lord has a day which he still calls his own, which we have shown to be the holy Sabbath. All days, then, are not alike. God claims at the very close of the canon of inspiration, in the book of Revelation, as he did at its beginning, in the book of Genesis, that one day is his own. ChSa 76.1