Objection:
The Old Testament prophets foretold that the time was coming when the Sabbath would be done away, for example, Hosea 2:11. In Amos 8:5, the question is asked, “When will the Sabbath be gone?” The prophet answered that this would occur when the sun went down at noon, and the earth was darkened on a clear day (Amos 8:9). The earth was thus darkened when Jesus was crucified. Hence the Sabbath came to an end at the cross.
Answer:
To the credit of this Sunday advocate it should be said at the outset that this objection is not frequently presented against the Sabbath. Hosea 2:11 reads: “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, Her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.” Place alongside this the word of the Lord through Isaiah: “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: They are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: Your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:” Isaiah 1:11–19.
Here is a picture of backsliding Israel given over to idolatry and every evil, yet observing the forms of the ritual of days and seasons given to them at Sinai. Thus, they made a mockery of divinely ordained services. In return God declared that fearful judgments were to come upon them. No more would they engage in a round of services; no more would mirth or the sound of gladness be heard in the land. The very “trees” and “vines” were to be destroyed (Hosea 2:12). God would shut His eyes from seeing them and His ears from hearing them.
And when were these fearful prophecies uttered? Well in advance of the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, with its capital in Samaria, and the taking into Babylonian captivity of the kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem. In that fearful destruction and captivity Bible commentators find adequate fulfillment of these prophecies. But these judgments came on Judah and Israel several centuries before the cross. Thus, the Sabbath objector would have the Sabbath ending more than half a millennium too soon to fit his theory that at the cross, the Sabbath ended, and Sunday took its place.
Not the abolition of the Sabbath, or any religious service for that matter, is foretold by these texts, but rather the abolition of a rebellious nation.
Now, what of the question asked in Amos 8:5? The passage, including the immediately preceding verse, reads thus: “Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, Even to make the poor of the land to fail, Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? And the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, Making the ephah small, and the shekel great, And falsifying the balances by deceit?”
Nothing was allowed to be sold on the Sabbath. Greedy, godless merchants desired to take up their traffic as soon as possible again. So they inquired as to when the Sabbath would be gone. To say that such a question is directed toward the prophet Amos or that the questioners desire to know when the Sabbath will be abolished is to say something patently without foundation and contrary to the evident facts.
And what of the claim that Amos predicted the sky’s darkening at the crucifixion of Christ? Immediately after he has described the greed and iniquity of the Israelites, Amos tells of the judgments that are to come on them: “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, That I will cause the sun to go down at noon, And I will darken the earth in the clear day: And I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; And I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, And baldness upon every head; And I will make it as the mourning of an only son, And the end thereof as a bitter day.” Verses 9, 10.
Let Amos interpret his own words. Three chapters earlier, he discusses these same judgments and says, “Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! To what end is it for you? The day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; Or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your feast days, And I will not smell in your solemn assemblies…. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, Saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.” Amos 5:18–21, 27.
It is evident that this darkening of the sun was a synonym for the blackness of God’s judgment and the sun’s going down at noon on a clear day, a figurative way of describing the suddenness and unexpectedness of that awful judgment. And this judgment, this sudden blackness, that was to envelop Israel was their being led “into captivity beyond Damascus.” That judgment fell on the kingdom of Israel about seven hundred years before the cross.
When Nehemiah, long afterward, gathered a remnant of the Israelites that had been taken captive into Babylon and sought to restore Jerusalem, he endeavored most valiantly to revive the proper keeping of the Sabbath. (See Neh. 13:15–22).
