In Defense of the Faith

Did The Greek Church Change The Sabbath?

Upon utterly failing to prove the theory that the apostles changed the Sabbath, Mr. Canright moves to an entirely new platform and boldly declares: DOF 160.3

“Sunday observance originated with the Eastern or Greek Church, not with Rome in the West ..... The proof of this is abundant.”—Ibid., p. 165. DOF 160.4

And again: DOF 160.5

“All the first witnesses for the Lord’s day were not Romans, but Greeks living in the East.”—Ibid., p. 167. DOF 160.6

Now this is certainly a most important admission. Mr. Canright made it in an attempt to disprove the claim that the Roman Church changed the day, but he has proved too much. In fact, he has given his case entirely away. Seventh-day Adventists have always claimed that the Sabbath was changed by human and not divine authority, and here we have a full admission of this fact by Mr. Canright. The only difference now left between his position and that of the Seventh-day Adventists is that he tries to differentiate between actions of the churches in the East and those in the West. He claims that it was not the church at Rome or any of the Western Catholic churches that did the changing of the Sabbath, but that it was the Greek Catholic churches in the East. So says Mr. Canright. DOF 160.7

Suppose for the moment that we admit this sharp distinction between the actions of these branches of the early Catholic Church. That the Greek Catholic Church in the East was entirely responsible for the change. What have we now? Why, in Sunday we have a Greek Catholic Sabbath instead of a Roman Catholic Sabbath. And may we inquire what advantage we have thus gained? Is a Greek Catholic Sabbath better in any particular than a Roman Catholic Sabbath? Did the churches in the East have greater authority to tamper with God’s law than the churches in the West? How is this? So long as the change was not made on Scriptural authority, but by human organizations after the days of Christ and His apostles. What binding claim can this new Sunday rest day have upon Christians, even if it did come from the Greeks instead of the Romans? The really important consideration is that it originated with man, and not with God. DOF 161.1

But let us note the dilemma in which Mr. Canright has placed himself. Says he: DOF 161.2

“The change was made by the apostles.”—Ibid., p. 83. DOF 161.3

Then he says:

“Sunday observance originated with the Eastern, or Greek, Church, not with Rome in the West.”—Ibid., p. 165. DOF 161.4

Now we ask, How can both of these statements be true? If the change were made by the apostles, how could Sunday observance have originated with the Greeks? Were the twelve apostles Greeks? Not one of them. They were all Galilean Jews. It was not until after every ordinance of the Christian church had been instituted and placed in order; not until the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, which ratified the new covenant; not, in fact, until Pentecost that the gospel began to be proclaimed to the Greeks and other Gentile nations. In fact, Mr. Canright refers to Pentecost to show that the Greeks heard the gospel on that occasion, and carried it to the countries in the East. (See The Lord’s Day, by D. M. Canright, p. 166.) DOF 161.5

But what has this to do with the Sabbath? The early ‘church was already established, its laws and ordinances were fixed, it had been given its commission to “go.... teach all nations,” and the teaching was to lead people “to observe all things whatsoever I [Jesus] have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19, 20. The commands had been given, and with Peter’s sermon on Pentecost the apostolic church, under the endowment of the Holy Spirit, entered upon its Heaven appointed task of world evangelism. Any change of laws or ordinances after that would be invalid. It had not been left for Gentile converts of later centuries to make the rules and laws of the church, but Christ had carefully attended to all this Himself, and had given His disciples full instruction as to what to teach. Concerning the Ten Commandments, He had said to them’: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail”; and “whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Luke 16:17; Matthew 5:19. This, then, included the Sabbath and all, every tittle. This is as though Jesus had said that not so much as the dot of an I or the cross of a T was to fail or be changed. And the disciples are commanded to both do and teach them. Thus the commission given by our Lord to the church to “teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,” included the teaching of the whole Ten Commandments. Any subsequent change in the Sabbath, by either Greek or Roman therefore in no way alter our obligation to keep the original Sabbath of creation. DOF 162.1

Let us carefully note Mr. Canright’s statement already quoted: DOF 163.1

“All the first witnesses for the Lord’s day were not Romans, but Greeks living in the East. These were Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Clement, Anatolius, Origen, Usebius, etc.”—The Lord’s Day, p. 167. DOF 163.2

Let the reader carefully note this candid admission. DOF 163.3

But by does he not cite Christ, Paul, Peter, James, John, Matthew, and the other apostles and New Testament writers, as the “first witnesses for the Lord’s day”? Simply cause the apostles knew nothing of a Sunday Lord’s Day, and therefore could not bear witness to it. No such thing as substituting Sunday for Saturday, the original seventh-day Sabbath, had been thought of in their day. All is change followed later, in the wake of the apostasy which engulfed Christendom during the Middle Ages, and Mr. Canright here frankly admits that he has to turn to the church Fathers of these medieval times, when the church had departed from the apostolic faith, to find the witnesses for his Sunday Lord’s day. But Mr. Canright’s witnesses have come on the stand a few centuries late, and their testimony cannot be admitted as evidence by the true disciple of Christ. DOF 163.4