The Seventh Day of the Week is the Sabbath of the Lord

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

FIRST OBJECTION. — The Sabbath cannot now be observed as the Jews were required to keep it. The law required them to remain in their houses on that day. “Abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” Exodus 16:29. SDSL 17.1

ANSWER. — Probably there is no reader of the Holy Scriptures who really believes that God required the whole Jewish nation, for 1600 years, to remain in their houses through the entire Sabbath of twenty-four hours, yet this objection is often repeated. We will here state a few facts: — SDSL 17.2

1. The text quoted [Exodus 16:29] is no part of the great Sabbath law written with the finger of God in the tables of stone. Exodus 20:8-11. SDSL 17.3

2. The text had direct reference to the children of Israel going out to gather manna on the Sabbath, after they had been told that on the seventh day none would be found in the field. Exodus 16:23-29. And it is decidedly wrong to quote this by-law, given to the Israelites under such circumstances, as the great law of the Sabbath. SDSL 17.4

3. The law that came from God through Moses required them to go out of their houses on the Sabbath. First, they observed all the offerings on the Sabbath that they did on the other six days, also two lambs, with a meat-offering and a drink-offering. Numbers 28:9, 10. Second, they had on the Sabbath a “holy convocation” or religious assembly, [Leviticus 23:3,] therefore they could not remain in their houses on that day. SDSL 17.5

Now we ask, Did the law which God gave to the Jews, relative to ordinances, oblige them to break his holy Sabbath? Never! It would make God the veriest tyrant in the universe to cause Sabbath-breakers to be stoned to death, and at the same time give the Jews a system of religion that compelled them to break the Sabbath!! SDSL 17.6

4. After the children of Israel had passed over Jordan, they went round the city of Jericho with the ark of God seven successive days. One of those days was the Sabbath. It is evident, then, that Exodus 16:29, referred only to the case of the manna. The act of going round Jericho on the Sabbath with the ark, was not a violation of the Sabbath law contained in the ark. SDSL 18.1

SECOND OBJECTION. — The Jews were not allowed to gather sticks to kindle a fire on the Sabbath, and it is not possible to keep the day as strictly as they were required to. SDSL 18.2

ANSWER. — The great universal Sabbath law, the fourth commandment, does not mention gathering sticks, or kindling fires. We have the account [Numbers 15:32-37] that “while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day;” but we are not told for what purpose he gathered them. SDSL 18.3

The Israelites were commanded to cook on the sixth day the manna to be eaten on the seventh. To have kindled fires on the Sabbath to wash their clothes or cook their manna, would have been doing on the Sabbath the work of one of the six laboring days. They had no need of fires on the Sabbath. They were in a mild climate; their food was rained down from heaven, and their clothes were miraculously preserved. “There was not one feeble person among their tribes.” Psalm 105:37. For them, under such circumstances, to have kindled a fire on the Sabbath, would have been an open violation of the Sabbath law. SDSL 18.4

We are differently situated. We live in an age when the race has become comparatively feeble, and in the cold season of the year we would kindle a fire on the Sabbath as an act of mercy and necessity, the same as we would water an ox or a horse, or lift a sheep from a pit. Such acts, the “Lord of the Sabbath” pronounced “lawful.” But it is evidently wrong, and a violation of the Sabbath, to neglect to make those necessary preparations for the rest of the holy Sabbath which can be consistently made on the sixth day. The Sabbath law forbids our doing on the seventh day that which can be done on the sixth, and also what is not really an act of mercy and necessity. The Sabbath law did not oblige the Jews to suffer either cold or hunger; neither does it us, for “the law is holy, just and good.” SDSL 19.1

THIRD OBJECTION. — The law of the Sabbath required that the Sabbath-breaker should be stoned to death; and the same penalty should now be inflicted if the law exists. SDSL 19.2

ANSWER. — We call attention to the following facts: SDSL 19.3

1. The fourth commandment does not mention stoning the Sabbath-breaker. SDSL 19.4

2. Temporal death never was the full and final penalty for breaking the law of God. For if it was, then he who murdered, blasphemed, or broke the Sabbath, under the Jewish economy, only had to be stoned to death to satisfy the law. And in the judgment his sin cannot appear against him; for the law was fully satisfied when he suffered temporal death. But the penalty of God’s law was, and still is,, Eternal Death. “Sin is the transgression of the law,” and “the wages [penalty] of sin is death.” SDSL 19.5

3. Temporal death was also inflicted upon the Israelites if they transgressed others of the commandments of God beside the fourth. Read Leviticus 24:11-16. Here the son of the Israelitish woman “blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed,” and the Lord said, “Let all the congregation stone him.” He broke the third commandment. And it will be seen by comparing Numbers 15:32-36, with Leviticus 24:11-16, that he who broke the fourth commandment, and he that broke the third, shared the same fate. Is the third commandment still binding? “Certainly,” says the objector, “the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,’ is binding with all its force.” We ask, Should the blasphemer now be stoned to death? The objector will have to acknowledge that although the third commandment is binding in this dispensation, the gospel does not inflict temporal death on the blasphemer. In the Jewish dispensation there was no atonement that could reach his case, therefore he was stoned to death, and removed from Israel. But under the gospel, the atoning blood of Christ can reach his case, and wash away the sin of blasphemy, so mercy now pleads for the transgressor of the third commandment, that he may be spared, that he may repent of the sin of blasphemy and live. This is just the position we would take in regard to the fourth commandment. And we may now see why the Apostle called the gospel covenant the better covenant. Mercy now pleads for the Sabbath-breaker, that he may be spared, turn from his sin, find pardon and live. In this respect the ministration of God’s law under the gospel, far excels [2 Corinthians 3] the ministration of condemnation and death, under the Jewish economy. SDSL 20.1

FOURTH OBJECTION. — Deuteronomy 5:2, 3, shows that the Sabbath was made for the Jews alone. “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” If the covenant mentioned here is the ten commandments, then the Sabbath was not made for the fathers, but only for the Jews. SDSL 21.1

ANSWER. — Let us see if this view of the text does not prove too much for the objector. Admitting that the ten commandments are this “covenant,” therefore the duty to keep the Sabbath was not binding on the fathers, does it not prove that the duties enforced by the other nine commandments also were not binding on the fathers? Abraham, then, could disregard the seventh day, because the covenant was not made with the fathers, and Isaac and Jacob could have other gods, bow down to graven images, take the name of the Lord in vain, kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness and covet, for the same reason, that the covenant was not made with the fathers!!! SDSL 21.2

Thirty days before the children of Israel saw Mount Sinai, where the covenant was made, God gave the following rebuke: “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? see, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath.” This shows that God’s commandments and laws, embracing the Sabbath, existed before this covenant was made in Horeb, therefore Deuteronomy 5:2, 3, proves nothing against the Sabbath. The covenant referred to was the mutual agreement between the children of Israel and the Lord, [Exodus 19,] the ten commandments [Exodus 20] being the moral conditions of the covenant. SDSL 21.3

FIFTH OBJECTION. — The word Sabbath is not found in the Bible until after the account of the children of Israel leaving Egypt; so it was not instituted at creation, but at Sinai when the law was given. SDSL 22.1

ANSWER. — The entire record of about 2500 years from creation is contained in the first fifty-two chapters of the Bible. Only the most important events from creation to the deliverance of Israel from Egypt are noticed, therefore it is no marvel that we do not find the word Sabbath. But what seems really remarkable is that at a later period, even when the Sabbath-breaker was stoned to death, we do not find the word Sabbath in the Sacred Record for more than 500 years. SDSL 22.2

It is recorded [Genesis 2:2, 3] that God rested on the seventh day, and that he sanctified and blessed his Rest-day. The fourth commandment points back to what God did on the seventh day, and to the seventh day, as the only reasons why the Sabbath was instituted. But this fact alone, that God and Moses speak of the Sabbath in a familiar style one month before Israel saw Sinai, is perfectly destructive of the idea that it was instituted at the giving of the law. SDSL 22.3

SIXTH OBJECTION. — Christ is our example, and he broke the Sabbath. SDSL 22.4

ANSWER. — We will first notice the Sabbath law. “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work,” that is, labor necessary to this life. “But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work;” that is, cease from the toil of the six days, and engage in the special service of God. It may be said of the priests who offered unto the Lord on the Sabbath all the usual daily offerings, and two-lambs extra, that they labored; but what God required them to do on the Sabbath was not what the fourth commandment calls “labor,” and “thy work.” When Christ was accused of Sabbath-breaking he justified himself on the ground that what he did on the Sabbath was “lawful.” His merciful acts on that day cannot with the least propriety be classed with what the Sabbath law calls “labor,” and “thy work;” but rather, let those acts be classed with the ministration of the priests in holy things on that day. It is true that Christ declared his disciples “guiltless” in plucking the corn and eating it on the Sabbath. But it is said of them that they “were an hungered;” and where has God forbidden eating on the Sabbath to satisfy hunger? Nowhere. SDSL 22.5

Christ said to the impotent man whom he healed on the Sabbath, [John 5:8,] “Rise, take up thy bed and walk.” Two of the Prophets speak against bearing burdens on the Sabbath; but they refer to burdens of merchandise, such as “sheaves, wine, grapes and figs,” [Jeremiah 17; Nehemiah 13,] which were brought into Jerusalem to sell. Now let the objector compare conveying burdens of merchandise to market to sell for worldly gain, with the healed man with his bed praising God, and he may see the difference. One was labor for worldly gain, while the other was for the glory of God. One was a violation of the Sabbath law, but the other was an act of mercy which manifested the power of God. SDSL 23.1

SEVENTH OBJECTION. The commandment to keep the Sabbath is not given in the New Testament, therefore it is not a Christian duty to keep it. SDSL 23.2

ANSWER. — It is true that the fourth commandment is not given over a second time in the New Testament; neither is the second, but this falls far short of proving that Christians are released from the duties enjoined by those commandments. If it be said that we have in the New Testament that which is equivalent to the second commandment, then we cite Matthew 24:20; Luke 23:55, 56; Acts 13:42, 44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4, where the Sabbath is mentioned as existing in the gospel. SDSL 24.1

Not one of the ten commandments is given in the New Testament on a new account, or given as a new law. Christ, Paul, John and James, refer to them as a whole, and have quoted some of them; but they speak of them as the original law of God. And why should a second edition of the Sabbath law be given in the New Testament unless the original [Exodus 20:8-11,] were abolished? When the objector will prove by plain testimony that the first edition of the fourth commandment has been abolished, then we will either show a second edition from the New Testament, or give up the Sabbath. We teach the Sabbath of the Bible. Let those who assert that it is abolished, produce one plain text to prove their assertion. This is a reasonable request. Will they produce the text? We want none of their inferences from Romans 14; Colossians 2:14-17, which have been a hundred times repeated. They should not be allowed in a case like this. God gave the Sabbath law in the plainest language possible; and no man should be convinced that it has been abolished, unless he can find testimony as positive and plain, coming from as high authority. SDSL 24.2

Romans 14, does not mention the Sabbath. But the objector infers that the expression “every day alike,” [verse 5,] embraces the seventh-day Sabbath. So we might infer from the phrase “him that eateth not,” [verse 3,] that a portion of the Christian church in Paul’s day lived without eating. Or from the phrase, “gather a certain rate every day,” [Exodus 16:4,] that God commanded the Israelites to gather manna on the Sabbath, when there was none rained from heaven on that day. The Apostle’s subject relates to the Jewish notions of eating, which troubled Gentile believers. And how perfectly natural that Paul is here speaking of feast days. And how very unnatural the inference that in his remarks he is mixing up “meat,” “drink,” “herbs,” and seventh-day Sabbath all together. SDSL 24.3

Colossians 2, speaks of Sabbath-days, or Sabbaths. Leviticus 23, shows seven Jewish Sabbaths, to be celebrated at their appointed times, “besides the Sabbaths of the Lord.” See verses 37, 38. Here the distinction between the two kinds of Sabbaths is seen. Paul, in Colossians 2, refers to those Sabbaths which are classed with “meat,” “drink,” “new moon” etc, and not to the Sabbath which the Law-giver has wisely associated with nine moral precepts. SDSL 25.1

Behold the display of Divine Power at the giving of the ten commandments. The smoke ascended from Mount Sinai as the smoke of a great furnace; the lightnings flashed, and the thunders of Jehovah rolled down its base. God had descended upon it in awful grandeur to speak in the ears of all the people the ten precepts of his holy law. These precepts were of such a character, of such vast importance, that the great Law-giver did not leave them for man to write; but with his finger engraved them in tables of stone. Behold them placed in the beautiful ark, overlaid and inlaid with the purest gold. Mark well the victories won by Israel when with the ark of God they crossed Jordan, marched around Jericho, and went forth to battle. See the ark put in the Most Holy of the earthly Sanctuary. It was the center of their religious system, it was the glory of Israel. The fourth commandment was in the ark. And how preposterous the supposition that the Almighty, through his Son Jesus Christ, should abolish his Sabbath, without giving one plain testimony of the fact in the Book of Inspiration. What presumption for men to go on in violation of the fourth commandment, and risk their eternal salvation upon mere inference!! May God help the objector to feel the force of the truth we are here stating. SDSL 25.2

Now, if the Lord’s Sabbath has been abolished, where have the Prophets foretold the event? “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the Prophets.” Amos 3:7. As none of the Prophets have foretold the abolition of the Sabbath, and as none of the Apostles have recorded such an event, we are certain that no such event ever occurred. SDSL 26.1

EIGHTH OBJECTION. — Paul says that “the ministration of death written and engraven in stones” was abolished; therefore the Sabbath is abolished. SDSL 26.2

ANSWER. — It will be observed that if this chapter teaches the abolition of the Sabbath, it teaches that all ten of the commandments also are abolished. The Apostle here speaks of two ministrations. He is contrasting the ministration of the law of God under Moses, (which was a ministration of condemnation and death) with the ministration of the same law under the gospel, (which is the ministration of the Spirit.) It is the ministration of death that is done away, to give place to the more glorious ministration of God’s law, called the ministration of the Spirit. A law is one thing, and the ministration of that law is quite another thing. SDSL 26.3

But we would inquire, Why should all ten of the commandments of God be slain at the cross, even if it was necessary to abolish the fourth? All agree that nine are good, yea, indispensable for the gospel dispensation. Was it an oversight in the Law-giver in placing the Sabbath in the midst of nine moral precepts? And did he have to slay the whole ten in order to get rid of the Sabbath? But if all ten were abolished at the cross, how is it that nine are still binding? “Why,” says the objector, “nine of them were re-enacted by Christ for the gospel.” But here is a serious difficulty; the objector has nine of the commandments re-enacted during Christ’s ministry, before the ten were abolished at his death!!! SDSL 27.1

If it be said that the apostles re-enacted nine of the commandments for the gospel after their Lord ascended and the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them, we reply that according to this view there was a space between the abolition of the ten, at the cross, and the re-enactment of the nine; a space when there was no law, consequently, no transgression, and men might blaspheme, murder, etc., and not commit sin!!! But if the objector takes the ground that the nine commandments were re-enacted at the cross at the time when he thinks the ten were abolished, then we shall understand him that Heaven aimed a blow that killed all ten of the commandments, and that the same blow, at the same moment, brought nine of them to life again!! And all this to get rid of the Sabbath which Christ says was made for man. SDSL 27.2

We will now illustrate the objector’s position by a simple figure. Let his ten fingers and thumbs represent the ten commandments. His fore finger on his right hand represents the Sabbath law. This finger has served him well, but now it is diseased, and past cure, and in his way while attempting to labor. It is against him, contrary to him, and he decides to call a surgeon and have it cut off and taken out of the way. The surgeon comes and pronounces the finger past sure. He tells him, that in all his future life, nine will be sufficient. The surgeon cuts off all of his fingers and thumbs. He then lays aside the diseased finger, and sets himself at work joining on the other nine for the objector’s benefit during his future life. What a foolish surgeon! And with what folly does the no-Sabbath system charge the all-wise God. We leave the objector to his reflections. SDSL 28.1

NINTH OBJECTION. — Christ is our law-giver, and he never commanded the observance of the Sabbath. SDSL 28.2

ANSWER. — Christ did not come to legislate, but to teach his Father’s commandments; to “magnify the law, and make it honorable.” “Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.” John 7:16. “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.” Chap 14:24. “As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.” Chap 8:28; 12:49, 50. SDSL 28.3

Says the Apostle, “There is one Law-giver who is able to save, and to destroy.” James 4:12. Who is this law-giver? Let another Apostle answer. “If any man sin, [transgress the law,] we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” SDSL 28.4

1 John 2:1. If Christ is our law-giver, who is our advocate? We have none! But God the Father is our Law-giver, and Christ is our Advocate. SDSL 29.1

TENTH OBJECTION. — As the day does not begin at the same time on all parts of the world, east and west, it is not possible for all the inhabitants of the world to keep the same hours for the Sabbath. SDSL 29.2

ANSWER. — The Sabbath law requires the observance of the seventh day. God gave the sun to rule the day. At noon, (an easily ascertained point of time,) the twenty-four-hour day is three-fourths past. The seventh day, governed by the sun which is God’s great time-keeper, comes in Palestine six or seven hours sooner than in the State of New York. It can be kept there when it arrives, so can it here. SDSL 29.3

But if the Sabbath law requires that the same identical twenty-four hours should be kept, instead of the seventh day, how could the Jews, scattered east and west in the land of Palestine keep it? They would find precisely the same difficulty that the inhabitants of the world around would. SDSL 29.4

Let not the advocates of the first day of the week urge this objection; for their first day is affected by it as much as the seventh. If they assert that God’s law requires no particular day, but only a seventh portion of time, we reply, then let them cease talking of commemorating redemption, by keeping the first day, which they say was completed at the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week. Did Christ rise from the dead on some day of the week, and no day in particular!!! Their own profession binds them to the first day of the week, and destroys their seventh-part-of-time theory. SDSL 29.5

ELEVENTH OBJECTION. — Suppose two should travel around the world, one going east and the other west, when they get round there would be a difference in their reckoning of the days of the week. SDSL 30.1

ANSWER. — This supposition is frequently offered by advocates of the first-day as forming an objection to the seventh alone. They seem to be blind to the fact that if this objection is of any weight, it is as much against the first day as the seventh; and consequently against the Sabbath institution itself; and if against the institution, then against God; for it impeaches the wisdom of the Creator. SDSL 30.2

TWELFTH OBJECTION. — The reckoning of the days of the week may not have been preserved, so that we may not be able to tell when the true seventh day comes. SDSL 30.3

ANSWER. We would first remark that this objection is often urged by those who profess to observe the first day of the week in honor of Christ’s resurrection. But are they certain that they observe the true first day of the week? They appear to be. Then they should allow us to be as confident that we observe the true seventh day; for the seventh day is the day before the first. SDSL 30.4

But God has pointed out the true seventh day, at certain periods of time, in a manner sufficiently plain to satisfy the most sceptical man who has any faith in divine revelation. At the close of the first week, God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested. Pass down from creation 2500 years to the giving of the manna, [Exodus 16,] and it will be seen that there the God of heaven pointed out the true seventh day. “Six days ye shall gather it; [the manna;] but on the seventh day,, which is the Sabbath, there shall be none.” SDSL 30.5

Now, pass down over a period of about 1600 years, to the First Advent. There the Son of God claims to be Lord of the Sabbath. It will be admitted that the Lord of the Sabbath knew when the day of the Sabbath came. If the true seventh day had been lost during that 1600 years, he most certainly would have corrected the error. As he corrected no such error, but kept the day then observed as the Sabbath, it is certain that the true numbering of the days of the week had been preserved during that 1600 years. SDSL 31.1

We would say to those who hold that the Sabbath is merely Jewish, that to admit that the true numbering of the days of the week was lost during that 1600 years, would reflect greatly upon the character of their Jewish Law-giver. It would charge him with giving the Jews the Sabbath law, with the penalty of death for its violation, then leaving them without means to retain the knowledge of the day! SDSL 31.2

From the period of the First Advent the true seventh day has been brought down to us with a certainty. The Jews and some Christians have continued its observance, and all agree as to the day on which it occurs. Mahomet selected the sixth day of the week as a Sabbath for his followers, which corresponds with the sixth day of the week as reckoned by Jews and Christians. And the great body of professed Christians have observed the first day of the week, which corresponds with the first day of the week, as reckoned by Jews and Mohammedans. SDSL 31.3

Now have these three great divisions of the human family all made a mistake so that a day may have been lost or a day gained? If so, there was a time when the Jews to a man made this mistake in reckoning the week; at the same time, and to a man, Christians made a mistake that precisely corresponded; and to crown the whole, the Mohammedans made a mistake in the reckoning of the week that precisely corresponded to that of the Jews and Christians! “Believest thou all this?” If a mistake had been made, is it not absolutely certain that there would be a discrepancy somewhere? As there is no such discrepancy, is it not absolutely certain that no such mistake exists? We can hardly find it in our power to believe that the inhabitants of a single school-district could, at the same point of time, have made a mistake in the days of the week, and to heighten the wonder, every one make precisely the same mistake! But when we extend this simultaneous act to all the districts in a town, thence to all the towns in a county, thence to all the counties in a state, and thence to all the states in the Union, we have carried the matter almost an infinite distance beyond reason or credibility. SDSL 31.4

But all this is not so remarkable as the supposed mistake of Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and all nations! That these classes, each composed of many millions, not confined to any country, but scattered in every land under heaven, should all make a mistake — should all make the same mistake, and should all make the same mistake at the same time, and no individual of the number ever discover, or ever suspect that such a mistake had taken place, is an idea not only absolutely unreasonable and in the highest degree absurd, but it is positively beyond the power of those who would, to credit it. W. SDSL 32.1