The Truth Found

THE SABBATH WAS NOT JEWISH

We hope you will examine this fact with care; for there are many who suppose that those who keep the seventh day are Jews, or are observing a Jewish institution. But we assure you that we endeavor to live as Christians, observing only those things enjoined in God’s word, and neglecting, or rejecting, only those things not found therein. TFNOS 8.3

The name Jew is derived from Judah, the son of Jacob, who was born 2255 years after the creation. At creation, the distinction of Jews and Gentiles could not have been known; for they did not exist until more than 2000 years after the rest-day of God was blessed and sanctified. But if the sanctified day on which God rested was a Jewish Sabbath after the Jews as a separate people came into existence, what was it during the 2000 years before their existence? Would you conclude that it was a Gentile Sabbath from the creation to the separation of the Hebrews, and then a Jewish Sabbath till the time of Christ? Consider well this matter, and let your conclusion be such as will stand the test of the Judgment day. TFNOS 8.4

But we do not find in the Bible that the seventh-day Sabbath was ever called a Gentile Sabbath, or a Jewish Sabbath, but it was always called the Lord’s Sabbath. It was established and sanctified as a day of rest from the creation, not by the Gentiles, nor the Jews, but by the Lord; and neither Gentiles nor Jews were there. When the Sabbath was made, no human beings were there but Adam and Eve; and though they were the first parents of all, both Gentiles and Jews, it would be as absurd to call them Jews or Gentiles, as it would be to call them English, French, or Germans. And to say that the Sabbath, which God instituted at creation, and sanctified because that in it he had rested—to say that it was a Jewish Sabbath, is no more correct than to say that it was a French Sabbath, a German Sabbath, or a Norwegian Sabbath. Men, the creatures of God, the descendants of Adam, have become divided into various distinct classes since the Sabbath was instituted; but to say that the Sabbath was instituted in view of these distinctions, or for any particular class, is taking unwarranted liberties with God’s word and his sacred institutions. We should take God’s truths as they come to us from his hand, and place implicit confidence in what he has spoken. TFNOS 9.1