In Defense of the Faith

The Date Line, Or Day Line

Discussing the so-called lost-time question and the date line, in an article in Present Truth, published in Washington, D.C., in its issue of July 15, 1926, Mr. C. P. Bollman, associate editor of that periodical, said: DOF 202.3

“Considerable dust has been thrown, in the study of this subject, by introducing the question of the date line, which the Standard Dictionary (article, ‘Date;’ subtitle, ‘Date Line’) defines thus: DOF 203.1

“‘An imaginary line fixed upon as the point where the reckoning of the calendar day changes: in nautical practice, he meridional line 180’ from Greenwich, but practically running through Bering Strait and irregularly through the Pacific Ocean. East of this line the day is dated one day earlier than on the west of it.’ DOF 203.2

“This location of the day line, or date line, is not an arbitrary human arrangement, as might at first thought seem to be the case. Its establishment in the Pacific Ocean was clearly due to the position of the continents and the divine plan for peopling the earth. It is conceded by all that Asia as the cradle of the race. Spreading naturally from their original home, the children of men carried the day and week with them to the eastern confines of Asia, and to adjacent islands. But even before this was accomplished, the course of empire had begun to run toward the west, and so continued until the westward and higher tide of settlement and of civilization met the conservatism of the East in the Pacific Ocean. Thus God by His providence established the date line in the only place possible, all things considered. Man did not establish, but simply discovered, this line in the place where the Creator by His providence had put it when He made the world and formed man upon it. DOF 203.3

“Technical questions as to the identity of the week and of the weekly Sabbath are never raised, except as an excuse for not obeying the fourth commandment just as it reads, ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath.’ Nobody has any difficulty ‘in identifying any day-of either the month or the week in,any part of the earth, except the seventh day. DOF 203.4

“Large bodies of Christians, as the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, etc., emphasize just as strongly the importance of keeping the definite first day of the week, as do the Sabbatarians the obligation to observe the definite, identical seventh day. Such technical questions are raised, not because of practical difficulties encountered in identifying the Sabbath in any part of the world, but only when an excuse is sought for not complying with the plain and explicit terms of the fourth commandment. The question is not only an impeachment of the intelligence of the great majority of both first-day and seventh-day observers, but infinitely worse yet, it charges the Almighty Himself with folly in giving to the race a commandment that in its very nature could not be obeyed. All the other days can be clearly defined, but the Creator’s memorial of His finished work is so illusive, some would have us believe, that it cannot be identified! DOF 203.5

“The fact is that not the Jews only, but the whole world, in the providence of God, have the weekly cycle, to which no reasonable or probable origin can be assigned other than the Mosaic and other ancient and similar accounts of creation. The Creator says in His law: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.... The seventh day is the Sabbath.’ Exodus 20:8-11.” DOF 204.1