SEVENTH -DAY A D V EN T ISM continued
If the keeping of the seventh day is imperative, why did not Christ and the apostles command it?
and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” ) , to refer to mankind as a whole, not to the Jews, to whom Christ was directly speaking. Again, the Adventist makes much of the fact that the Lord Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Of course He did. He was a Jew who obeyed the law of Moses. He lived in Palestine all His earthly life. But when He went to the cross, that was the end of the law, for He was the end of the law (2 Cor. 3:5-14; Col. 2 :9 -1 5 ). He was personally the complete and perfect fulfillment of all the law, including the Sabbath! Paul also preached in synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath, for obviously that was where he could find a Jewish audience! The Seventh-day Adventist further claims that the fact that Christ rose in triumph over death on the first day o f the week was of no consequence; that the gatherings together of the primitive Christians on the first day of the week, as recorded in Acts, were not actually public meetings at all. One has only to refer to the descriptions of such assemblies as in Acts 20:7 to prove this false. First Corinthians 16:1, 2 also throws light on the subject. There is such a fanatical and unrelenting attempt on the part of the Seventh-day Adventists to make the Scriptures mean what they wish them to teach, that one, in reading their arguments, is impressed that there is indeed something Satanic about such a rabid brand of religiosity. Apparently it is the design of the enemy of men’s souls to divert the attention of the needy soul to the observance of a day, as a means of salvation, and away from the Lord Himself as "the way, the truth and the life.” Keeping of the Sabbath Discouraged The Seventh-day Adventists claim that because the term Sahhath days used in Col. 2:16 is in the plural, it cannot refer to the weekly Sabbath day. However, in the Authorized (King James) Version, the word days is in italics, signifying that it did not appear in the original manuscript, and in the American Standard Version (the Revised), the transla tion is a Sabbath day. The Sabbatarians will be required to produce another translation for any support of the theory that this verse does not include the regular weekly Sabbath as well as all the other Sabbaths of the Mosaic system. Dr. Rowell has done the church of Christ a great service as he points out that in the New Testament, duty to keep all other nine commandments is mentioned, but obligation to keep the Sabbath is not once mentioned. Worship of the Lord God only, is found 50 times; idolatry condemned, 12 times; profanity, 4 times; honor of parents, taught 6 times; murder condemned, 6 times; adultery, 12 times; theft, 6 times; false witness, 4 times; and covetousness, 9 times. Dr. Rowell makes this reasonable inquiry: "If, as the Seventh-day Adventists affirm, the keeping of the seventh day is imperative, why did Christ not once command it? And why did the apostles neither command it, nor condemn
"Either the Seventh-day Adventists do not know all that Peter Geiermann wrote on this subject, or else they refuse to quote that which makes the difference. . . . This Romanist theologian actually taught that the Lord’s Day was observed from the times of the apostles. I have before me a highly commended work by this Rev. P. Geiermann, C.SS.R., entitled, A Manual o f Theology fo r the Laity, bearing the official imprimatur and Nihil Ohstat. In this we read: 'The first Christians, besides, kept Sunday holy also, because on that day the Saviour rose from the dead, and the Holy Ghost came down on the apostles. Later on, however, a dispute rose between the Jewish and Gentile converts respecting the day which must be kept holy. Many of the Jewish converts maintained that all converts were bound by the entire law of Moses. TO REMOVE TH IS ERRONEOUS IMPRES SION, and to free her children from the ceremonial law of Moses, the church decreed in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364) that all Catholics should keep holy Sunday as the Lord’s day (Apoc. 1 :10 ) AS HAD BEEN DONE IN APOSTOLIC TIMES (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 1 6 :2 ). This change the church was authorized to make by the power conferred upon her by Jesus Christ’ (p. 326 ). While it is not necessary for us to refer to the papacy for proof that the first day of the week was the day of worship for the early church, we cite this as evidence that the Adventists will withhold what seems best to them, and quote only those portions which are expedient for them.” * It is interesting in connection with Dr. Rowell’s conclu sions to reflect that the "mark” of Roman Catholicism has never been a day of worship. What distinguishes that system from all other religious bodies is their belief in the supremacy and infallibility of the papacy. Neither Constantine nor the Council of Laodicea "changed the day,” as claimed by the Seventh-day Adventists. They only approved the observance of the first day of the week, on which day the Christian church had worshiped from its beginning. To claim otherwise is to deny the facts of history. Where is the Sabbath in the New Testament? The Seventh-day Adventist is hard put to it to explain why not once in the New Testament is there given a com mand to keep the seventh or the Sabbath day. He endeavors to put such commands in the mouth of the Lord Jesus and resorts to such absurdities as twisting Matthew 24:20 into a Sabbath precept. This verse, obviously a prediction of the then soon-coming destruction of Jerusalem (in 70 A .D .), states: "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day,” and naturally it refers to the difficulties of travel on those occasions. It is no more a refer ence to keeping the Sabbath than it is to keeping the winter season! The Seventh-day Adventist forces Mark 2:27, 28 ("And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man,
*Copyright by The Sunday School Times Co. Used with their permission.
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