Objection:
The phrase “the seventh day” in the fourth commandment simply means one day out of seven. Therefore, I am keeping the spirit of the Sabbath law as long as I keep one day out of seven. And isn’t Sunday one day out of seven?
Answer:
There are some genuine reasons why “the seventh day” means a specific day, not simply one day in seven:
- Those who believe the Bible speaks of creation week and view the series of events that then occurred as setting the unique time cycle, the seven-day week, in motion. Was the Sabbath simply one day in seven in that first week? No, it was the specific seventh day of that week. Why would it become less specific in succeeding weeks, years, and centuries?
- The Sabbath memorializes a certain historical event, the completion of the creation of this world. Memorial days must be anchored to definite points of time if they are to have significance. They are intended to recall a particular day or moment of history. For example, to Americans, “the Fourth” does not mean the fourth of any month but the Fourth of July. And why? Because a certain event took place on a certain fourth of July long ago. By law, that particular day is set apart in memory of the Declaration of Independence. Now, what would we think of the man who reasoned that “the Fourth” means simply the fourth day of any month, that he can therefore choose some other “fourth” on which to remember some other historical event and still keep the law that sets apart “the Fourth” as a special day for the nation?
But there are Sunday advocates, devout and sincere men, who contend that they are obedient to the fourth commandment, which calls for keeping the seventh day of the week in honor of the creation when they keep the first day of the week in honor of the resurrection!
Indeed, the fourth commandment does not say “the seventh day of the week” was blessed and sanctified by God as the Sabbath, but simply that “the seventh day” was. Sabbath objectors seek to make capital of this, declaring that “the seventh day” may, therefore, justifiably be construed to mean simply one day in seven. But that God intended the phrase “the seventh day,” in the commandment to mean the seventh day of the week will be increasingly evident as we proceed.
- The Sabbath command refers back to the creation week, and it is in the historical setting of that week that the phrase “the seventh day” of the commandment must, therefore, be understood. God did not simply rest one day in seven in the creation week. He rested on the seventh day of that week.
- No day was so solemnly set before Israel by the prophets of God as the weekly Sabbath day. When certain Israelites went out to gather manna on “the seventh day,” they were rebuked (Ex. 16:27-28). When one of them gathered sticks on the Sabbath day, he was stoned (Num. 15:32-36). When certain of those who had returned from the Babylonian captivity tried to carry on commerce on the Sabbath, they were denounced (Neh. 13:15-21). Neither Sunday advocate nor Sabbath keeper today has any doubt in his mind that those Old Testament instances of Sabbath breaking had to do with a specific day, the seventh day of the week. But the prophets could point only to the fourth commandment to support their fervent admonition to keep holy this specific seventh day of the week. Therefore we must conclude that these inspired men of God understood “the seventh day” in the commandment to mean the particular seventh day of the week. And would anyone wish to challenge the ability of the prophets rightly to interpret the meaning of God’s commands? Indeed, is it not part of the holy work of God’s prophets to make clear to our finite minds the meaning of His holy commands?
- Christendom generally believes that our Lord lay in the tomb on the seventh day of the week. And how does Luke describe that day? “The Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56. That one inspired statement is sufficient to settle the question of what the commandment means when it says that “the seventh day is the Sabbath.” It means the seventh day of the week, Saturday.
- As already noted, no one has any doubt but that those who lived before Christ were required by God’s holy commandment to keep the seventh day of the week. In other words, “the seventh day” in the command unquestionably meant the seventh day of the week. Then, what rational ground can be found for claiming that when Christ came, the plain and specific meaning of the commandment suddenly became vague and nonspecific and now means merely one day in seven? No one ever thought of making such an astounding claim at the time of Christ or for almost sixteen hundred years afterward. Until AD 1595, Christians, as certainly as the Jews, understood “the seventh day” in the commandment to mean the seventh day of the week–study the various Christian church’s creeds for proof. So far from having any foundation in Scripture, this one-day-in-seven theory was not even heard of until fifteen hundred years after the last of the apostles had gone to his grave.
- The phrase “the seventh day” indicates that a particular day, not merely one day in seven, is meant. Suppose we told a friend that we lived in the seventh house on a specific block. What would we think if he began at the first house on the block and knocked at each door until he came to the seventh, explaining at each front door that he was trying to find an old friend who had told him he lived in the seventh house in the block, and that that meant, of course, that he lived in any one of the seven houses? What would we think? Yes, and what would our neighbors think of the sort of friends we had?
- Through the long generations, ardent Sunday advocates have succeeded in placing a statute requiring at least nominal observance of Sunday on the law books of most Christian lands. Often, the prime argument in favor of such a law has been that God commands the keeping of a weekly day of rest. The only command to which they could point was the fourth command of the Ten Commandments. If they were reminded that the fourth command calls for honoring the seventh day, not the first, they could escape embarrassment only by replying that the fourth commandment simply means one day in seven. It never occurred to them that if the Bible commands merely that one day in seven be kept holy, they were presumptuous, to say nothing of being inconsistent, in seeking to require all men to rest on a certain specific day. But church history, even down to our very time, grimly records that such Sunday advocates, though they have been willing to let “the seventh day” in God’s law mean any day in the week, have been ready to imprison the man who should thus interpret “the first day” in their Sunday law!
Now a word regarding the matter of keeping the spirit of the law. The Bible has much to say about the letter and the spirit, and some have obtained the mistaken idea that the spirit of a law means less than the letter of it, at least as regards divine law and very particularly as regards God’s Sabbath law. It is difficult to understand how such an idea could obtain credence. Perhaps it is because the word “spirit” conveys to some minds the thought of vague apparitions, airy, elusive, and shadowy, and that, therefore, the keeping of the spirit of a law means obeying something that is only a vague and shadowy resemblance of that law.
Nothing could be further from the truth in the matter. When we speak of keeping the “spirit of the law”–and the phrase is not uncommon in our everyday language–we mean keeping that law in its fullest and deepest sense. For example, consider the eight-hour labor law found in many states today. An employer may keep the letter of that law and yet slave-drive his employees so as to get from them in eight hours as much work as he formerly got in nine or ten. We say he has failed to keep the spirit of the law.
Do we mean that if such an employer had kept the spirit of that law, he would have been freed from the letter of it, which declares that eight hours is the maximum that an employee can be required to work in one day? Why, no, of course not. In other words, keeping the spirit of a law requires much more of a man than the mere keeping of the letter of it.
The Bible provides some choice illustrations of how this principle applies to the law of God. In the sermon on the mount, Christ explained that the command “Thou shall not kill” involved much more than refraining from committing actual violence against some person (Matt. 5:21-26). The man who hates his brother is a murderer. In other words, the spirit of that divine law against killing demands that he shall not hate any man. But no one is so irrational as to say that in keeping the spirit of this law, we are thereby released from obeying its letter. What a horrible thought!
How evident that those who keep the spirit of a law go far beyond the letter of it, not by disregarding the letter, but by seeing in the letter a far greater depth of meaning.
