25. The Sabbath

THE SABBATH

Why do Christians generally keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath instead of the seventh as the Lord commanded? Where in the Bible do we get authority to change God’s Law?

There is no such authority, and the Law has not been changed, but it has been abolished. Strictly speaking, it is unscriptural to speak of any day as the “Christian Sabbath.” The first day of the week is doubtless “the Lord’s Day” referred to in Revelation 1:10, but that does not make it the Sabbath. The Bible knows no weekly Sabbath but Saturday. If Christians were under the Law at all, they would be obliged to keep the Saturday Sabbath. But they are not under the Law; they are under grace (Romans 6:14). The Law was given to Israel as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ that they might be justified by faith. But now that faith is come, even they are no longer under the schoolmaster (Galatians 3:23-25). As for the Gentiles, they never had the Law (Romans 2:14). The Law of Sinai, “written and engraven in stones,” was a temporary covenant, a “ministration of death” and “condemnation,” which is now “done away” (2 Corinthians 3:7-11; compare Romans 7:1-4). Sunday, or the Lord’s Day, is a weekly celebration of the resurrection of our Lord from the dead.

You say that “The law of Sinai, written and engraven in stones, was a temporary covenant, a ministration of death and condemnation which is now done away.” Also you say “it is unscriptural to speak of Sunday as the Sabbath.” In that connection I should like to ask a couple of questions.

1. Is Westcott & Hort’s Greek New Testament true to the original manuscripts? If so, and I have always heard that it is, then there is scriptural authority for the change of the Sabbath, forMatthew 28:1says: “At the end of the sabbath (ton Sabbaton), as it began to dawn toward the first or chief of the sabbaths (ton Sabbaton), came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.”

2. Is the Sermon on the Mount a manual of arms for the Christian now or only in Christ’s Millennial reign? If now, then practically everyone of the moral commandments such as the ten commandments, though not the ceremonial, is reiterated and enlarged rather than abrogated in the Sermon on the Mount.

While we live under grace and not under Law, yet it seems to me from Christ’s statements that the moral part of the Law is enlarged and glorified though the ceremonial part is done away.

Maybe I am wrong and I should like your opinion on the matter.

1. Westcott and Hort’s Greek New Testament is undoubtedly a very reliable work. But your difficulty arises from the fact that the Greek word in the New Testament (any Greek New Testament) is the same for “sabbath” as for “week.” This is true of the Old Testament Hebrew also. Whether “sabbath” or “week” is meant in any particular case must be determined by the context. Westcott and Hort do not translate into English; if they did they would doubtless render Matthew 28:1 exactly as the Authorized and Revised Versions have done.

2. The Sermon on the Mount applies directly to the Kingdom age rather than to this one. But it is true that even in the New Testament Epistles all the principles of the moral Law are reiterated and insisted upon. But the Sabbath law is purely ceremonial, though found in the heart of the so-called moral Law. The distinction between that and ceremonial Law is artificial and arbitrary. We are not under Law at all, whether moral or ceremonial. This is not to say that we are free to be immoral. The thing is that instead of putting us under an external Law God has wrought in our hearts a desire to please Him and obey Him.

You say, “The righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in believers because they have stopped trying to keep the Law and have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.” Do you teach that grace gives license to violate the Ten Commandments? The seventh day Sabbath is included in “the righteous requirement of the Law,” (Romans 8:4). It cannot mean some modified Law with the Sabbath left out for at that time the New Testament was not written. A minister here claimed that Colossians 2:14-17 included the Ten Commandments, and especially the seventh day Sabbath, but the Seventh Day Adventists take the position that this passage refers only to the ceremonial Law.

1 John 3:4 says that “sin is the transgression of the law,” and Paul says, “for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20), and then he quotes from the Law about which he is speaking, “Thou slialt not covet” (Romans 7:7), thus showing that he has reference to the Ten Commandment law, and that is the Law that says, “the seventh day is the Sabbath.” Now, if the willful violation of that Law is sin, then we should observe the Sabbath, for the violation of it is sin.

There is no need whatever of confusing this matter if we will just believe what the New Testament says about it. Trying to keep the Law is what Romans 8 means by walking in the flesh. We Gentiles were never under the Law anyway, and it is a purely academic question with us whether Colossians 2:14-17 refers to the ceremonial Law only or to the whole Law. When Paul says that it “was against us,” he is referring to himself as a former Jew who had been under the Law. In reading Colossians and Galatians and the other Epistles, we should be very careful to distinguish between the pronouns. Look, for example, at Galatians 3:19-29, and see how carefully Paul changes from “we” to “ye” in verses 25 and 26.

1 John 3:4 does not really say, “Sin is the transgression of the law,” but rather, “Sin is lawlessness,” that is to say, it is denial of any authority over us. The correction is made in the Revised Version. In 2 Corinthians 3 the Law, “written and engraven in stones,” is said to be a “ministration of condemnation” and “a ministration of death,” as contrasted with the Gospel, which is a ministration of justification and a ministration of life. And the Law is said to be “done away in Christ.” (Omit the italicized words; they are not in the text at all.)

Read the Episde to the Galatians and believe what it says, and you will be led out of all difficulty about our relation to the Sabbath. There has not been a Sabbath in 1900 years for, strictly speaking, the Sabbath came to an end when the present dispensation began. We have, however, a Lord’s Day, which is a precious heritage unto us and which ought to be carefully preserved. It is a mistake to refer to it as a Sabbath, for it is nothing of the kind except as the laws of our states have made it a civil Sabbath. As such, of course, it is of inestimable blessing in the industrial world and ought to be carefully prized and protected from invasion so that our people may have an opportunity to obey the command which bids them not to forsake the assembling of themselves together.

What are your views on the Sabbath? Is the Seventh Day Adventist’s charge concerning its change justified? or do they stick too much to the letter? That is not the trouble. The Seventh-dayists have departed from the letter. The Sabbath was never changed, and on this point they are right; but the Sabbath was abolished, and on this point they are wrong. The Sabbath was a part of the Law, which “is done away in Christ.” Read (and believe) the third chapter of Second Corinthians, as well as the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and you will see that we are not under the Law at all, but under grace; and that what we now have is not the Sabbath at all, but the Lord’s Day, which is an entirely different institution. Don’t tell a Seventh-dayist that the Sabbath was changed, for it was not; but tell him the Sabbath is displaced by the Lord’s Day, and you will be telling him the truth. Is there anything in the Old Testament enjoining or commanding the Sabbath to be used as a day of worship? The fourth commandment makes no mention of worship; only the cessation of all work. That is all. The Sabbath was a day of enforced idleness. Our Lord’s Day has nothing in common with it except that it comes once a week and is dedicated peculiarly to God. To speak of the “Christian Sabbath” is confusion. The Sabbath was an institution of the old covenant, which is “done away” (2 Corinthians 3). Let us rejoice that we are “free from the law” even as to Sabbaths (Romans 6:14; Colossians 2:16) but let us rejoice also in the privileges of the Lord’s day, which offers so many opportunities for the united worship and service of God. In explaining the Sabbath question you say that the Sabbath will be again observed in the Kingdom age. Please state reasons for said observance, and why it should be so in the Millennium. The statement was based upon the Scripture cited in connection therewith, namely, Isaiah 66:23. It is clear that the verses preceding the verse must relate to the Kingdom age; and the verse itself says: “And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah.” Likewise, in Zechariah 14:16, it is written that “it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, Jehovah of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” As for the purpose in the mind of God in restoring the Sabbath during the Millennial age, it has not been revealed to us. It may be in order that on a certain set day there may be the assembly of God’s people before Him. Unless some day is agreed upon, such an assembly would manifestly be impossible. That is true even of our own Lord’s Day, the first day of the week. The Spirit of God seems to have led His people from the very beginning of the New Testament to set apart the first day of the week as a day on which to assemble in the name of the risen Lord. That does not make it a Sabbath, of course, and it is not a Sabbath; but a return to the weekly Sabbath in the Kingdom age might serve the purpose I have mentioned.