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THE SUNDAY SABBATH
Question: The Sabbath was first instituted at Sinai, right? And therefore was made for the Jews, right?
Answer: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," Mark 2:27. Therefore, the Sabbath would need to be in place for man to celebrate it. God "rested," "sanctified" and "blessed the seventh day," (Gen. 2:2). However, He did not rest because He was exhausted ("The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary." Isa. 40: 28.), but the rest spoken of here means: "to cease from all labor." This was God's design for man as is seen in the fourth commandment (Exo. 20:9-10): "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: (10) But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." And God says: "For in six day the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hollowed it." Exo. 20:11. This links the Sinai Sabbath with the creation Sabbath as one and the same. Therefore, the Sabbath existed since man's second day on earth. And we see the evidence of this when we read Exo. 16:27-28: "And it can to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day [or God's Sabbath] for to gather, and they found none. And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws?" Note that this episode is taking place before Sinai, and that God expected them to have knowledge of His laws, one of which is God's Sabbath, just as now He expects us to have a knowledge of His laws.
Question: Ah, but the Sabbath, created by God, commanded by God, and observed by God Himself, was changed or abolished when He died on the cross, right?
Answer: "If the law of God could have been changed or abolished then Christ need not have come to a fallen world to suffer the consequence of man's transgression." 2SP:218. "I saw that it was impossible for God to alter or change His law, to save lost, perishing man; therefore He suffered His beloved Son to die for man's transgression." 1SG:27; 1SP:48. The Biblical fact that God is unchanging is clear from the following texts: Num. 23:19; Psa. 89:34; Psa. 102:27; Ecc. 3:14-15; Mal. 3:6; Heb. 1:11-12; 13:8; Jam. 1:17; 1Pe. 1:23.
Question: Are you then saying that you must keep God's laws in order to be saved?
Answer: "The doctrine that good works can make satisfaction for transgression of God's law," is "based upon falsehood. Reliance upon human merits intercepts the view of Christ's infinite love. Jesus died as men's sacrifice, because they can do nothing to recommend themselves to God. The merits of a crucified and risen Saviour are the foundation of the Christian's faith. The union of the soul to Christ by faith is as real, as close, as that of a limb to the body, or of a branch to the vine." 4SP:78. "If the law could be changed, man might have been saved without the sacrifice of Christ; but the fact that it was necessary for Christ to give His life for the fallen race, proves that the law of God will not release the sinner from its claims upon him." PP:70. It is "Christ in you" that enables, or even gives you the desire to obey and serve a righteous, loving God. To miss this point in the Christian walk, is to mis-understand and mis-appropriate God's gift of salvation. Thus we see that the keeping of God's commandments is because we love God (John 14:15). And it would be impossible to be saved without loving God. It is a Biblical "teaching that the glory of salvation belongs solely to God," while "the duty of obedience belongs to man." GC:213.
Question: Ok, but the Sabbath is Sunday, right?
Answer: The established Christian world admits that Christ rose on Sunday, the first day of the week. So if we read: "In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week," Mat. 28:1. Thus the record shows us that Saturday, being the day before the first day of the week, is, was, and will be (Isa. 66:23), God's seventh-day Sabbath.
Now let me ask you the reader a Question: Do you know why God rested on the seventh day?
Answer: Because He wanted to bless the seventh day and sanctify it (Gen. 2:3), which would make it Holy. And we know that Jesus "is Lord even of the Sabbath day" (Mat. 12:8) meaning that in His death, Christ died for the righteousness of this portion of His law also. Keeping the correct day Holy is a test of allegiance as to whom you will obey - God or man.
It is because of the claims of the Papacy that we can clearly see the originator of this man made law.
Question: "What day was the Sabbath?"
Answer: "Saturday."
Question: "Who changed it?"
Answer: "The Catholic Church." From, Rev. Dr. Butler's Catechism, Revised, p.57.
Question: "Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?"
Answer: "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 Stephen Keenan, p. 174.
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 feasts commanded by the same Church."
Question: "How prove you that?"
Answer: "Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the Church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin." Douay Catechism, p.59.
"To cause the Sabbath to be kept from work is a mark of Judaizing and a sign of anti-Christ." Pope Gregory the Great, "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," art. "Sabbath."
"Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives; either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible." Cardinal Gibbons, in Catholic Mirror, Dec. 23, 1893.
"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 [Roman Catholic] Church." Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, by Monsignor Louis Segur, 1868, p. 213.
"The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday." Catholic Mirror, Sept. 23, 1893.
"Sunday is our mark of authority... the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact." The Catholic Record of London, Ontario, Canada, Sept. 1, 1923.
"We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church in the Council of Laodicea [384 AD] transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday." The Converts, Catechism, by Peter Geirmann, p. 50.
"The Church... after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the third commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's day." Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, p. 153.
"The Bible does not contain all the teachings of the Catholic religion, nor does it formulate all the duties of its members. Take, for instance, the matter of Sunday observance, attendance at divine service, and abstention from unnecessary servile work on that day. This is a matter upon which our Protestant neighbors have for many years laid great emphasis; yet nowhere in the Bible is the Sunday designated as the Lord's day; the day mentioned is the Sabbath, the last day of the week. The early Church, conscious of her authority to teach in the name of Christ, deliberately changed the day to Sunday." Understanding the Catholic Faith, p. 13, 1955 edition.
"If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church." Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a letter of Feb. 10, 1920.
"From this same Catholic Church you have accepted your Sunday, and that Sunday, as the Lord's day, she has handed down as tradition; and the entire Protestant world has accepted it as tradition; for you have not an iota of Scripture to establish it. Therefore that which you have accepted as your rule of faith, inadequate as it of course is, as well as your Sunday, you have accepted the authority of the Roman Catholic Church." The Papal Controversy, 1892, p. 179, by D. B. Ray.
"Nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the seventh day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the church [Roman] outside the Bible." Catholic Virginian, Oct. 3, 1947.
From Martin Luther: "They [Roman 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 then the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments." Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 28, par. 9.
"You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! But by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, 'Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day' who shall dare to say, nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day, but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead? This is a most important question which I know not how you can answer. You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only; and yet, in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that which He has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments; you believe the other nine are still binding; who gave you are consistent with your own principle, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered." Library of Christian Doctrine, by Burns and Oates, pp. 3-4, London.
"Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts: (1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man. (2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church instituted by Christ, to teach and guide men through life, has the right to change the Ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, 'yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday Abstinence, the unmarried priesthood... and a thousand other laws?' (3) We also say that of all Protestants, the Seventh-day Adventists are the only group that reason correctly and are consistent with their teachings. It is always somewhat laughable to see the Protestant Churches, in pulpit and legislature, demand the observance of Sundays of which there is nothing in the Bible." The Catholic Extension Magazine, Thomaston, Georgia, May 22, 1954.
"Prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic Church says No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And Lo! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church." The American Sentinel, a New York Roman Catholic Journal, June 1893, p. 173.
"Nothing is said in the Bible about the change of the Lord's day from Saturday to Sunday. We know of the change only from the tradition of the Church - a fact handed down to us from earliest times by the living voice of the Church. That is why we find so illogical the attitude of many non-Catholics, who say that they will believe nothing unless they can find it in the Bible and yet will continue to keep Sunday as the Lord's day on the say-so of the Catholic Church." Salvation History and the Commandments, p. 294, 1963 edition, by Rev. Leo J. Trese and John H. Castlelot, S.S.
"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act... and the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious things." H.F. Thomas, letter Nov. 11, 1895, Chancellor under Cardinal Gibbons.
"The Catholic Church transferred the observance from the seventh to the first day of the week... The Catholic Church deemed it more fitting to appoint this day, rather than Saturday, the festival day of Christian:" This Is Catholicism, 1959 edition, John Walsh, S.J., p. 325.
"If the Bible is the only guide for the Christian, then the Seventh-day Adventist is right in observing the Saturday with the Jew... Is it not strange that those who make the Bible their only teacher, should inconsistently follow in this matter the tradition of the Catholic Church?" The Question Box, p. 179.
"You may search 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." The Faith of Our Fathers, by Cardinal Gibbons, CH. 8.
"It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church." The Elizabeth N.J. News, March 18, 1903.
SABBATH OBSERVANCE
Observed The Seventh Day: Gen. 2:1-3; Exo. 16:23-30; 20:8-11; 23:12; 31:13-17; 34:21; 35:2; Lev. 23:3; Deu. 5:12-14; Heb. 4:4.
Commanded By God: Exo. 16:23-30; 20:8-11; 23:12; 31:13-17; 34:21; 35:2; Lev. 23:3; Deu. 5:12-15.
Observed By the Apostles: Luke 23:56; Acts 13:14; 13:42,44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4; Rom. 9:29; Heb. 4:4; Jam. 5:4.
Observed Even Unto Even: Gen. 1:5,8,13,19,23,31; Lev. 23:32.
Friday = Preparation Day: Exo. 16:22-23; Mat. 27:62; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:14,31,42.
Begins Friday Evening At Sunset: Gen. 1:5,8,13,19,23,31; Neh. 13:19 Mark 1:32.
Ends Saturday Evening At Sunset: Mat. 8:16; 28:1; Mark 1:32; Luke 4:40; John 20:1.
No Secular Work: Exo. 20:8-11; 23:12; 31:14-15; 34:21; 35:2; Lev. 23:3; Num. 15:32-36; Deu. 5:12-14; Jer. 19:22.
Do Works Of Righteousness: Mat. 12:11-12; Mark 3:4-5; Luke 6:9-10; 13:15-16; John 7:23.
Prepare Food Friday [Preparation Day] Not Sabbath: Exo. 16:22-30; Num. 15:32-36.
High Sabbath: John 19:31.
No Cooking On Sabbath: Exo. 35:3.
Bear No Burden On: Jer. 17:21-22,24; Neh. 13:15,19.
Lawful To Do Well On: Mat. 12:12; Mark 3:4; Luke 6:9.
No Buying Or Selling: Neh. 10:31; 13:16-18.
Set Aside Your Own Ways: Isa. 58:13-14.
Jesus Is Lord Of The Sabbath: Mat. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5; Rev. 1:10.
To Be Observed In Heaven: Isa. 66:23. [See Also: Rev. 11:19; 15:5.]
