The Doctrine of Christ

LESSON SEVENTY-TWO The Attempted Change of the Sabbath

1. According to prophecy a power would arise which would attempt to change the law of God. Daniel 7:25. TDOC 210.3

2. The specifications of the prophecy indicate clearly that this power is the Papacy. Daniel 7:7, 8, 11, 24, 25. TDOC 210.4

3. Such an assumption of unwarranted authority is in harmony with the spirit of self-exaltation ascribed, to the’ man of sin,” the Papacy. 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. TDOC 210.5

4. The change was accomplished gradually at first, and later by the authority of church councils. “Source Book,” pp 470-477. TDOC 211.1

5. If there were any divine authority for this change, the commandment which supersedes the fourth should be just as explicit and should be recorded just as plainly as was the original Sabbath commandment. There is no difficulty in finding divine authority for baptism and the Lord’s Supper, ordinances which took the place of those prescribed in the ceremonial law. The Great Controversy, 446-448. TDOC 211.2

NOTES

The fourth commandment in Roman Catholic catechisms

“The fourth commandment as printed in many of the Roman Catholic catechisms in general use reads thus: ‘Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.” TDOC 211.3

In a Roman Catholic catechism prepared by Cardinal Bellarmine, now in use in Italy, the fourth commandment reads thus in the Italian: ‘Recordati di sanctificare le Feste [Remember to keep holy the festivals]-“Dottrina Cristiana Breve,” Rome, 1836; English translation, London, 1839. TDOC 211.4

A Roman Catholic claim

“It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] church.”-“Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today,” Mgr. Segur, p. 213. TDOC 211.5

Church legislation

“Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [Sabbath, original], but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ.”-Synod of Laodicea, canon 29, cited in “A History of the Councils of the Church, from the Original Documents,” Right Reverend Charles Joseph Hefele, D. D., Bishop of Rottenburg (R. C.), book 6, Section 93 (Volume 2, p. 316). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1896. TDOC 211.6

Changing the law

“They [the Catholics] allege the changing of the Sabbath into the Lord’s day, contrary, as it seems, to the Ten Commandments; and they have no example more in their mouths than the change of the Sabbath. They will needs have the power to be very great, because it hath done away with a precept of the Ten Commandments.”-Augsburg Confession, part 2, article 7, paragraph 10. “The Library of Original Sources,” Vol. V, pp. 173, 174. TDOC 211.7

No Bible text for Sunday observance

You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.”-“The Faith of Our Fathers,” James Cardinal Gibbons, edition 1893, p. 111. TDOC 212.1

A human ordinance

“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps, at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”-“The History of the Christian Religion and Church,” Augustus Neander, Rose’s translation, first German edition, London, 1831, Volume 1, p. 33. TDOC 212.2

The reason for Sunday observance

“Ques.-Which is the Sabbath day? TDOC 212.3

“Ans.—Saturday is the Sabbath day. TDOC 212.4

“Ques.—Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? TDOC 212.5

“Ans.—We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (AD 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.”—“The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine,” Revelation Peter Geiermann (R. C.), third edition, 1913, p. 50. TDOC 212.6

“The observance of Sunday, under the new law, follows the keeping of the Sabbath, not in consequence of a legal precept, but from the decision of the church and the custom of Christians. But this observance is not typical, as the keeping of the Sabbath was under the old law. And therefore the prohibition of work on Sunday is not so strict as on the Sabbath.”-“Summa Theologia,” Thomas Aquinas, Qu. 122. art. 4. TDOC 212.7

A gradual change

“The Christian church made no formal, but a gradual and almost unconscious transference of the one day to the other.”-“The Voice from Sinai,” Archdeacon F. W. Farrar (Church of England), p. 150. TDOC 212.8

Dr. Eck on the change

“Concerning the Authority of the Church.-The Scripture teaches. Remember that you keep the Saturday; six days shall thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, etc. However, the church has transferred the observance from Saturday to Sunday by virtue of her own power, without Scripture, without doubt under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. TDOC 212.9

“Concerning Holidays and Fast Days.-The Sabbath is commanded in various places in the Scriptures. But there is no mention of the cessation of the Sabbath and the institution of Sunday in the Gospels, or in Paul’s writings, or in all the Bible; therefore this has taken place by the apostolic church instituting it without Scripture. TDOC 213.1

“If, however, the church has had power to change the Sabbath of the Bible into Sunday and to command Sunday keeping, why should it not have also this power concerning other days, many of which are based on the Scriptures such as Christmas, circumcision of the heart, three kings, etc. If you omit the latter, and turn from the church to the Scriptures alone, then you must keep the Sabbath with the Jews, which has been kept from the beginning of the world.”—“Enchiridion,” Dr. Eck (R. C.), 1533, pp. 78, 79. TDOC 213.2

Not changed by the apostles

“The church established her own weekly festival. Nor is it true to say that the apostles changed the Sabbath into Sunday, the observance of the seventh day to the observance of the first. For on the one hand there is no trace of such a transference taking place, and, on the other, the Christian Sunday differs widely from the Jewish Sabbath,”-“The First Age of Christianity and the Church,” J. J. von Dillinger (R. C.), Volume II, pp. 206, 2907. TDOC 213.3

No transference of the obligations

“The strange and inconsistent notion of a transference of the obligations of the Judaical religion and its institutions to those of Christianity, more especially of a change in the day of the Sabbath, had been partially adopted by some writers of early times, though not acknowledged by the church. But the notion of Christian ordinances succeeding in the place of those of Judaism first began to be systematically upheld, among other refinements and corruptions, by the schoolmen, especially by Thomas Aquinas.”-“Christianity Without Judaism,” Baden Powell, p. 163. TDOC 213.4

The work of the schoolmen,

“Not the apostles, not the first Christians nor the councils of the ancient church, have stamped Sunday with the name and seal of the Sabbath, but the church of the Middle Ages, and the schoolmen.”—“Geschichte des Sonntags” (History of Sunday), Bishop Grimelund, p. 46. TDOC 213.5