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IX.
Sabbath
Chapter 97
:
The Change of the Sabbath
1. OF what is the
Sabbath commandment apart?
The law of God. See Ex. 20:8-11.
2. What, according to
prophecy, was to be Christ's attitude toward the
law?
"The Lord is well pleased for His
righteousness sake; He will magnify the law,
and make it honorable." Isa. 42:21.
3. In His first
recorded discourse, what did Christ say of the
law?
"Think not that I am come to destroy
the law, or the prophets: I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfil." Matt. 5:17.
4. How enduring did He
say the law is?
"For verily I say unto you, Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled." Verse 18.
5. What did He say of
those who should break one of the least of God's
commandments, and teach men so to do?
"Whosoever therefore shall break one
of these least commandments, and shall teach men
so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven." Verse 19.
NOTE.-From this it is evident that the
entire code of ten commandments is binding
in the Christian dispensation, and that
Christ had no thought of changing any of
them. One of these commands the observance
of the seventh day as the Sabbath. But the
practice of most Christians is different;
they keep the first day of the week instead,
many of them believing that Christ changed
the Sabbath. But, from His own words, we see
that He came for no such purpose. The
responsibility for this change must
therefore be looked for elsewhere.
6. What did God,
through the prophet Daniel, say the power
represented by the "little horn" would think to
do?
"And he shall speak words against the
Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the
Most High: and he shall think to change the
times and the law." Dan. 7:25, R. V.
NOTE.-For a full explanation of this symbol,
see readings on "The Kingdom and Work of
Antichrist" and "The Vicar of Christ," in
previous chapters.
7. What did the apostle
Paul say the "man of sin" would do?
"For that day shall not come, except
there come a falling away first, and that man of
sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who
opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is
called God, or that is worshiped." 2 Thess.
2:3,4.
NOTE.-There is only one way by which any
power could exalt itself above God, and that
is by assuming to change the law of God, and
to require obedience to its own law instead
of God's law.
8. What power has
claimed authority to change the law of God?
The Papacy.
9. What part of the law
of God especially has the Papacy thought to
change?
The fourth commandment.
NOTES.-"They [the Catholics] allege the
Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day,
contrary to the decalogue, as it appears;
neither is there any example more boasted of
than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great,
say they, is the power and authority of the
church, since it dispensed with one of the
ten commandments."- Augsburg Confession,
Art. XXVIII.
"It (the Roman Catholic Church] has reversed
the fourth commandment, doing away with the
Sabbath of God's Word, and instituting
Sunday as a holy day."- N. Summerbell, in
"History of the Christians," page 418.
10. Why did God command
Israel to hallow the Sabbath?
"And hallow My Sabbaths; and they
shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye
may know that 1 am the Lord your God." Eze.
20:20.
NOTE.-As the Sabbath was given that man
might keep God in mind as Creator, it can be
readily seen that a power endeavoring to
exalt itself above God would first try to
cover up or remove that which calls man's
special attention to his Creator. This could
be done in no other way so effectually as by
setting aside God's memorial-the seventh-day
Sabbath. To this work of the Papacy Daniel
had reference when he said, "And he shall .
. . think to change times and laws."
Dan. 7:25.
11. Does the Papacy
acknowledge that it has changed the Sabbath?
It does.
NOTE.-"Question.-
How prove you that the church hath power to
command feasts and holy days?
"Answer.- By the very act of changing
the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants
allow of; and therefore they fondly
contradict themselves by keeping Sunday
strictly, and breaking most other feast days
commanded by the same church."-
"Abridgment of Christian Doctrine," by Rev.
Henry Tuberville, D. D., of Douay College,
France (1649), page 58.
"Ques.- Have you any other way of
proving that the church has power to
institute festivals of precept?
"Ans.- Had she not such power, she
could not have done that in which all modern
religionists agree with her,- she could not
have substituted the observance of Sunday,
the first day of the week, for the
observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a
change for which there is no Scriptural
authority."- "A Doctrinal Catechism," by
Rev. Stephen Keenan, page 174.
"The Catholic Church of its own infallible
authority created Sunday a holy day to take
the place of the Sabbath of the old law."-
Kansas City Catholic, Feb. 9, 1893.
"The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her
divine mission, changed the day from
Saturday to Sunday."- Catholic Mirror,
official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, Sept.
23, 1893.
"Ques.- Which is the Sabbath day?
"Ans.- Saturday is the Sabbath day.
"Ques.- Why do we observe Sunday
instead of Saturday?
"Ans.- We observe Sunday instead of
Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the
Council of Laodicea (A. D. 336), transferred
the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday ."-
"The Convert's Catechism of Catholic
Doctrine," by Rev. Peter Geiermann, C. SS.
R.., page 50, third edition, 1913, a work
which received the "apostolic blessing" of
Pope Pius X, Jan. 25, 1910.
What was done at the Council of Laodicea was
but one of the steps by which the change or
the Sabbath was effected. See under
questions 17-21. The date usually given for
this council is 364 A. D.
12. Do Catholic
authorities acknowledge that there is no command
in the Bible for the sanctification of Sunday?
They do.
NOTE.-"You may read the Bible from Genesis
to Revelation, and you will not find a
single line authorizing the sanctification
of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the
religious observance of Saturday, a day
which we never sanctify."- Cardinal
Gibbons, in "The Faith of Our Fathers,"
edition1892, page 111.
"Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its
claims to observance can be defended only on
Catholic principles. . . . From beginning to
end of Scripture. there is not a single
passage that warrants the transfer of weekly
public worship from the last day of the week
to the first."- Catholic Press (Sydney,
Australia), Aug. 25, 1900.
13. Do Protestant
writers acknowledge the same?
They do.
NOTE.-"Is there no express commandment for
observing the first day of the week as
Sabbath, instead of the seventh day?- None
whatever. Neither Christ, nor His apostles,
nor the first Christians celebrated the
first day of the week instead of the seventh
as the Sabbath."- New York Weekly
Tribune, May 24, 1900.
"The Scriptures nowhere call the first day
of the week the Sabbath. . . . There is no
Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of
course any Scriptural obligation."- The
Watchman (Baptist).
"The observance of the first instead of the
seventh day rests on the testimony of the
church, and the church alone."- Hobart
Church News (Episcopalian), July 2, 1894.
14. How did this change
in observance of days come about, suddenly or
gradually?
Gradually.
NOTE.-"The Christian church made no formal,
but a gradual and almost unconscious
transference of the one day to the other."-
"The Voice From Sinai," by Archdeacon F.
W. Farrar, page 167.
This of itself is evidence that there was no
divine command for the change of the
Sabbath.
15. For how long a time
was the seventh-day Sabbath observed in the
Christian church?
For many centuries. In fact, its
observance has never
wholly ceased in the Christian church.
NOTES.-Mr. Morer, a learned clergyman of the
Church of England, says: "The primitive
Christians had a great veneration for the
Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and
sermons. And it is not to be doubted that
they derived this practice, from the
apostles themselves."- "Dialogues on the
Lord's Day," page 189.
Prof. E. Brerwood, of Gresham College,
London (Episcopal), says: "The Sabbath was
religiously observed in the Eastern church
three hundred years and more after our
Saviour's passion."- "Learned Treatise of
the Sabbath," page 77.
Lyman Coleman, a careful and candid
historian, says: "Down even, to the fifth
century the observance of the Jewish Sabbath
was continued in the Christian church, but
with a rigor and solemnity gradually
diminishing until it was wholly
discontinued."- "Ancient Christianity
Exemplified," chap. 26, sec. 2.
The historian Socrates, who wrote about the
middle of the fifth century, says: "Almost
all the churches throughout the world
celebrate the sacred mysteries on the
Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of
Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some
ancient tradition, refuse to do this."-
"Ecclesiastical History," book 5, chap. 22.
Sozomen, another historian of the same
period, writes: "The people of
Constantinople, and of several other cities,
assemble together on the Sabbath as well as
on the next day; which custom is never
observed at Rome."- "Ecclesiastical
History." book 7, chap. 19.
All this would have been inconceivable
and impossible had there been a divine
command given for the change of the Sabbath.
The last two quotations also show that Rome
led in the apostasy and in the change of the
Sabbath.
16. What striking
testimony is borne by Neander, the noted church
historian, regarding the origin of the Sunday
sabbath?
"Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular
festival of Sunday very early, indeed, into the
place of the Sabbath. . . . The festival of
Sunday, like all other festivals, was always
only a human ordinance, and it was far from the
intentions of the apostles to establish a divine
command in this respect, far from them, and from
the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws
of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of
the second century a false application of this
kind had begun to take place; for men appear by
that time to have considered laboring on Sunday
as a sin."-
Neander's "Church History," Rose's translation,
page 186.
17. Who first enjoined
Sunday-keeping by law? Constantine
the Great.
NOTES.-"The earliest recognition of the
observance of Sunday as a legal duty is a
constitution of Constantine in 321 A. D.,
enacting that all courts of justice,
inhabitants of towns, and workshops were to
be at rest on Sunday (venerabili die Solis),
with an exception ill favor of those engaged
in agricultural labor."- Encyclopedia
Britannica, ninth edition, article "Sunday."
"Constantine the Great made a law for the
whole empire (321 A. D.) that Sunday should
be kept as a day of rest in all cities and
towns ; but he allowed the country people to
follow their work."- Encyclopedia
Americana, article "Sabbath."
"Unquestionably the first law, either
ecclesiastical or civil, by which the
Sabbatical observance of that day is known
to have been ordained, is the edict of
Constantine, 321 A.D.,-
Chambers's
Encyclopedia, article "Sabbath."
18. What did
Constantine's law require?
"Let all the judges and town people,
and the occupation of all trades rest on the
venerable day of the sun; but let those who are
situated in the country, freely and at full
liberty, attend to the business of agriculture;
because it often happens that no other day is so
fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest the
critical moment being let slip, men should lose
the commodities granted by heaven."-
Edict of March 7, 321 A. D., Corpus Juris
Civilis Cod., lib. 3, tit. 12, 3.
NOTE.-This edict, issued by Constantine,
under whom the Christian church and the
Roman state were first united, in a manner
supplied the lack of a divine command for
Sunday observance, and may be considered the
original Sunday law, and the model after
which all Sunday laws since then have been
patterned. It was one of the important steps
in bringing about and establishing the
change of the Sabbath.
19. What testimony does
Eusebius (270-338), a noted bishop of the
church, a flatterer of Constantine, and the
reputed father of ecclesiastical history, bear
upon this subject?
"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on
the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the
Lord's day."-"Commentary
on the Psalms," Cox's "Sabbath Literature," Vol.
1, page 361.
NOTE.-The change of the Sabbath was the
result of the combined efforts of church and
state, and it was centuries before it was
fully accomplished.
20. When and by what
church council was the observance of the seventh
day forbidden, and Sunday observance enjoined?
"The seventh-day Sabbath was . . .
solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and
primitive Christians, till the Laodicean
Council did, in a manner, quite abolish the
observation of it. . . The Council of Laodicea
[A. D. 364] . . . first settled the observation
of the Lord's day."-
Prynne's " Dissertation on the Lord's Day
Sabbath," page 163.
21. What did this
council, in its twenty-ninth canon, decree
concerning the Sabbath and Christians who
continued to observe it?
"Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on
Saturday [Sabbath], but shall work on that day.
. . . If, however, they are found Judaizing,
they shall be shut out from Christ."-
Hefele's "History of the Councils of the
Church," Vol. II, page 316.
NOTES.-Some of the further steps taken by
church and state authorities in bringing
about this change may be noted as follows:-
"In 386, under Gratian, Valentinian, and
Theodosius, it was decreed that all
litigation and business should cease [on
Sunday]. . . .
"Among the doctrines laid down in a letter
of Pope Innocent I, written in the last year
of his papacy (416), is that Saturday should
be observed as a fast-day. . . .
"In 425, under Theodosius the Younger,
abstinence from theatricals and the circus
[on Sunday] was enjoined. . . .
"In 538, at a council at Orleans, . . . it
was ordained that everything previously
permitted on Sunday should still be lawful;
but that work at the plow, or in the
vineyard, and cutting, reaping, threshing,
tilling, and hedging should be abstained
from, that people might more conveniently
attend church. . . .
"About 590 Pope Gregory, in a letter to the
Roman people denounced as the prophets of
Antichrist those who maintained that work
ought not to be done on the seventh day."-
"Law of Sunday," by James T. Ringgold, pages
265-267.
The last paragraph of the foregoing
quotation indicates that even as late as 590
A. D. there were those in the church who
observed and who taught the observance of
the Bible Sabbath, the seventh day.
22. What determines
whose servants we are?
"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye
are to whom ye obey?" Rom. 6:16.
23. When tempted to bow
down and worship Satan, what reply did Christ
make?
"Get thee hence, Satan: for it
is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and Him only shalt thou serve." Matt.
4:10,11.
24. What do Catholics
say of the observance of Sunday by Protestants?
"It was the Catholic Church which, by
the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred
this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the
resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance
of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they
pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of
the [Catholic] church."-
"Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today,"
by Mgr. Segur, page 213.
25. What kind of
worship does the Saviour call that which is not
according to God's commandments?
"But in vain they do worship Me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men." Matt. 15:9.
26. When Israel had
apostatized, and were almost universally
worshiping Baal, what appeal did Elijah make to
them?
"How long halt ye between two opinions? if
the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then
follow him." 1 Kings 18:21.
NOTE.-In times of ignorance God winks at
that which otherwise would be sin; but when
light comes He commands men everywhere to
repent. Acts 17:30. The period during which
the saints, times, and the law of God were
to be in the hands of the Papacy has expired
(Dan. 7:25); the true light on the Sabbath
question is now shining; and God is sending
a message to the world, calling upon men to
fear and worship Him, and to return to the
observance of His holy rest day, the
seventh-day Sabbath. Rev. 14:6-12; Isa.
56:1; 58:1,12-14. See readings in Chapters
58., 98., 102., and 120. of this book.
WHO
is on the Lord's side
Always true?
There's a right and wrong side,
Where stand you?
Thousands on the wrong side
Choose to stand,
Still 'tis not the strong side,
True and grand.
Come
and join the Lord's side:
Ask you why?-
'Tis the only safe side
By and by.
F. E. Belden. |
