THE Presbyterians hold the lead in the membership of the Christian Endeavor societies. The Interior is the Presbyterian paper published in Chicago. This paper publishes weekly lessons for the Christian Endeavorers. The lesson for them the week beginning July 23, 1899, was “Honoring the Lord’s Day.” By the term “Lord’s Day” in this lesson the Interior means Sunday. And Sunday, the calendar of this very lesson, shows to be the first day of the week.
The first instruction of the lesson is on “The Origin of the Lord’s Day.” In the first two sentences of this instruction are as follows:—
“The origin of the day is significant, and is an education in itself. The fact that God rested on the seventh day, that he hallowed it, that his example ought to be incentive, is the very beginning of right thought on the subject.”
Yes, that is the very beginning of right thought on the subject. And what has it, or what can it possibly have, to do with the first day of the week? As this lesson instruction says, God rested on the seventh day and hallowed it. But the seventh day is not the first day of the week. How much right thought is there in citing God’s resting and hollowing the seventh day, as incentive to people’s serving as a rest day the first day of the week? And when the Word of God says that God rested the seventh day, and that he hallowed it, and when the writer of that lesson knows this so well as to repeat the very expressions of the Lord’s word, then how much right thought is there in the writer’s taking what the Lord has said of the seventh day and applying it all to the first day, just as though it had all been originally said of the first day or as though the first day were the seventh day?
No; the Word of God says that he rested the seventh day; that he blessed the seventh day; and that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; and no right thinking can ever find the first day, or any other than the seventh day, to be the rest day after the example an incentive of the Lord.
More than this: Where can there be any right thought in thinking that Sunday is the Lord’s day, or that the single expression “Lord’s day” in the Bible (Revelation 1:10) can have any reference to the first day of the week, or Sunday? The Lord calls the Sabbath “my holy day,” “the Sabbath of the Lord“: and that shows that the Sabbath is the Lord’s day. And “the seventh day is the Sabbath”; and this shows in turn that the seventh day is the Lord’s day.
To present this a little more forcibly, if need be, we set it down here in the form of promise and conclusion, thus:—
“The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28.
“The seventh day is the Sabbath.” Exodus 20:10.
Therefore the Son of man is Lord of the seventh day.
As surely as the Scripture is true so surely is that conclusion truth.
Then using that conclusion as a premise we can form the following:—
The Son of man is Lord of the seventh day.
The day of which he is Lord is the Lord’s day.
Therefore the seventh day is the Lord’s day.
With that conclusion again as a premise we have the following:—
The seventh day is the Lord’s day.
John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Revelation 1:16 [sic.].
Therefore John was in the Spirit on the seventh day.
The premise and conclusions in these formule are all true—as true as Scripture, because they are simply the statements of Scripture in different forms.
Of course the second and third are dependent upon the first; but both premises in the first formula are positive statements of Scripture, and the conclusion is therefore strictly according to Scripture. Therefore as surely as the Scripture is true, so surely is it true that the Son [467] of man is Lord of the seventh day; that the seventh day and that day only is the Lord’s day; and that the prophet of Patmos was “in the Spirit” on the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord. Whosoever therefore would keep the Lord’s day must keep the seventh day; for “the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath,” and “the seventh day is the Sabbath.”
A. T. J.