The Sabbath

the Lord's Day

and the Mark of the Beast

From the book "Kingdom of the Cults" by Walter Martin

Certainly the most distinctive doctrine promulgated by the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, and one of the two from which they derive their name, is the Seventh-day Sabbath. How Adventists came to hold the Sabbath as the true day of worship, and why they continue to champion it and jealously urge it upon all who worship on Sunday, provides the key to understanding their psychological and theological motivations.

I. THE SABBATH OR THE LORD'S DAY

Seventh-day Adventists from the beginning have always attempted to equate the Sabbath
with the Lord's Day. Their principal method for accomplishing this is to link Mark 2:28 with
Revelation 1:10, and thus to undercut one of the strongest arguments against their position, i.e.,
the Lord's Day as opposed to Sabbath observance.

They reason that since "the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27-28), when
John says he "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10), the Sabbath and the Lord's
Day must be the same! The weakness of their position is that they base their argument on an
English translation instead of on the Greek original. When one reads the second chapter of Mark
and the first chapter of Revelation in Greek, he sees that there is no such interpretation inherent
in the grammatical structure. The Greek of Mark 2:28 clearly indicates that Christ did not mean
that the Sabbath was His possession (which the Adventists would like to establish); rather, He
was saying that as Lord of all He could do as He pleased on the Sabbath. The Greek is most
explicit here.

Nothing could be clearer from both the context and the grammar. In Revelation 1:10, the
Greek is not the genitive of possession, which it would have to be in order to make te-kuriake
(the Lord's) agree with hemera (day). John did not mean that the Lord's Day was the Lord's
possession, but rather that it was the day dedicated to Him by the early church, not in
accordance with Mosaic law, but in obedience to our Lord's commandment of love.

We may certainly assume that if the Sabbath had meant so much to the writers of the New
Testament, and if, as Adventists insist, it was so widely observed during the early centuries of
the Christian church, John and the other writers of Scripture would have equated it with the
Lord's Day, the first day of the week. Scripture and history testify that they did not, and
Adventists have, therefore, little scriptural justification for their Sabbatarianism.

A. Testimony of the Fathers

The church Fathers provide a mass of evidence that the first day of the week, not the
seventh, is the Lord's Day. Some of this evidence is here submitted for the reader's
consideration. In company with the overwhelming majority of historians and scholars, we
believe that not only the New Testament but the following citations refute Sabbatarianism. We
have yet to see any systematic answer to what the Christian church has always believed.

1. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, in the year A.D. 110, wrote: "If, then, those who walk in the
ancient practices attain to newness of hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but fashioning
their lives after the Lord's Day on which our life also arose through Him, that we may be found
disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher."

2. Justin Martyr (100-165): "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the
country gather together in one place and memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets
are read, as long as time permits. … Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common
assembly because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness in
matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead."

3. The Epistle of Barnabas (between 120 and 150): " 'Your new moons and your Sabbaths I
cannot endure' (Isaiah 1:13). You perceive how He speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not
acceptable to me but that which I had made in giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning
of the eighth day, that is a beginning of another world. Wherefore also, we keep the eighth day
with joyfulness, a day also in which Jesus rose from the dead."

4. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (about 178): "The mystery of the Lord's resurrection may not
be celebrated on any other day than the Lord's Day."

5. Bardaisan (born 154): "Wherever we be, all of us are called by the one name of the
Messiah, namely Christians and upon one day, which is the first day of the week, we assemble
ourselves together and on the appointed days we abstain from food."

6. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (200-258): "The Lord's Day is both the first and the eighth
day."

7. Eusebius (about 315): "The churches throughout the rest of the world observe the practice
that has prevailed from the apostolic tradition until the present time so that it would not be
proper to terminate our fast on any other day but the resurrection day of our Saviour. Hence,
there were synods and convocations of our bishops on this question and they unanimously drew
up an ecclesiastical decree which they communicated to churches in all places--that the mystery
of the Lord's resurrection should be celebrated on no other than the Lord's day."

8. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria (about 300): "We keep the Lord's Day as a day of joy
because of Him who arose thereon."

9. Didache of the Apostles (about 70-75): "On the Lord's own day, gather yourselves
together and break bread and give thanks."

10. The Epistle of Pliny (about 112, addressed to the Emperor Trajan): "They [the
Christians] affirmed … that the whole of their crime or error was that they had been wont to
meet together on a fixed day before daylight and to repeat among themselves in turn a hymn to
Christ as to a god and to bind themselves by an oath (sacramentum). … These things duly
done, it had been their custom to disperse and to meet again to take food--of an ordinary and
harmless kind. Even this they had ceased to do after my edict, by which, in accordance with
your instructions, I had forbidden the existence of societies."

Thus it appears that from apostolic and patristic times, the Christian church observed the
Lord's Day or the first day of the week; further, the Jewish Sabbath, in the words of Clement of
Alexandria (about 194) was "nothing more than a working day."

In their zeal to establish the authority of the Sabbath, Adventists either reject contrary
evidence as unauthentic (and so they conflict with the preponderance of scholastic opinion), or
they ignore the testimony of the early church. Although they seem unaffected by the evidence,
the fact remains that the Christian church has both apostolic and historical support for observing
the Lord's Day in place of the Sabbath.

B. "Authoritative Quotations"

Recently the Adventist radio program Voice of Prophecy circulated a thirty-one-page
pamphlet entitled Authoritative Quotations on the Sabbath and Sunday. In it they quoted
"leading" Protestant sources to "prove" that Sunday usurped the Sabbath and is a pagan
institution imposed by Constantine in A.D. 321.

However, many of the sources quoted actually establish what the Adventists flatly deny; i.e.,
that the Seventh-day Sabbath is not the Lord's Day or the first day of the week, but is, in fact,
the seventh day as its name indicates.

Since the Adventists are willing to quote these authorities to buttress their position in one
area, surely they will give consideration to contradictory statements by these same authorities in
another:

1. "The Lord's Day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath. … The Lord's Day was
merely an ecclesiastical institution. … The primitive Christians did all manner of work upon the
Lord's Day" (Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, Part 1, Book 2, Chapter 2, Rule 6,
Sections 51, 59).

2. "The observance of the Lord's Day [Sunday] is founded not on any command of God, but
on the authority of the church" (Augsburg Confession of Faith, quoted in Catholic Sabbath
Manual, Part 2, Chapter 1, Section 10).

3. "But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath
and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel" (J. T.
Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday, 15-16).

4. "They [the 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 than the changing of
the Sabbath Day" (Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession of Faith, Article 28, Paragraph 9).

5. "Although it [Sunday] was in primitive times and differently called the Lord's Day or
Sunday, yet it was never denominated the Sabbath, a name constantly appropriate to Saturday,
or the seventh day both by sacred and ecclesiastical writers" (Charles Buck, A Theological
Dictionary, 1850, 537).

6. "The notion of a formal substitution by apostolic authority of the Lord's Day [meaning
Sunday] for the Jewish Sabbath (or the first for the seventh day). … The transference to it,
perhaps in a spiritualized form of the Sabbath obligation established by promulgation of the
fourth commandment, has no basis whatever either in Holy Scripture or in Christian antiquity"
(Sir William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Volume 2,
182, article on the Sabbath).

7. "The view that the Christian's Lord's Day or Sunday is but the Christian Sabbath
deliberately transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week does not indeed find
categorical expression till a much later period. … The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364) … forbids
Christians from Judaizing and resting on the Sabbath Day, preferring the Lord's Day and so far
as possible resting as Christians" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1899 ed., Volume 23, 654).

Thus the Adventists have in effect destroyed their argument by appealing to authorities who
state unequivocally that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day and that it was observed by
the early Christian church from the time of the apostles.

It should also be carefully noted that in their "Authoritative Quotations" the Adventists
overlook the fact that nearly all the authorities argue forcefully for the Lord's Day as the first
day of the week, and state that legal observance of the Sabbath terminated at the cross
(Colossians 2:16-17). The Adventists also, in their compilation of quotations, appeal even to the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), and to Fulton Ousler, a Roman Catholic
laywriter. The Mormons are a non-Christian cult, a fact which the Adventists admit; and Ousler,
a layman, hardly represents the position of Rome.

On page thirteen of this same pamphlet, the Adventists make misleading use of the ellipsis.
The following is a direct quotation as it appears:

Sunday (dies-solis, of the Roman calendar, day of the sun, because
dedicated to the sun), was adopted by the early Christians as a day of worship.
The sun of Latin adoration they interpreted as the "sun of righteousness." … No
regulations for its observance are laid down in the New Testament, nor, indeed, is
its observance even enjoined (Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge, 1891 ed., Volume 4, Article on Sunday).

Now here is the paragraph as it appears in the Encyclopedia:

Sunday (dies-solis, of the Roman Calendar, day of the sun, because
dedicated to the sun), was adopted by the early Christians as a day of worship.
The sun of Latin adoration they interpreted as "the sun of righteousness."
SUNDAY WAS EMPHATICALLY THE WEEKLY FEAST OF THE
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, AS THE JEWISH SABBATH WAS THE
FEAST OF THE CREATION. IT WAS CALLED THE "LORD'S DAY," AND
UPON IT THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH ASSEMBLED TO BREAK BREAD
(Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). No regulations for its observance are laid down
in the New Testament, nor, indeed, is its observance even enjoined; YET
CHRISTIAN FEELING LED TO THE UNIVERSAL ADOPTION OF THE
DAY, IN IMITATION OF APOSTOLIC PRECEDENCE. IN THE SECOND
CENTURY ITS OBSERVANCE WAS UNIVERSAL. (Sentences in capital
letters were omitted by the writer of the Adventist pamphlet on page 22. This
mutilation of authoritative sources first occurs in The Present Truth, Volume 1,
Number 9, published in the 1880s. So our Adventist brethren apparently failed to
check the quotation's validity.)

Such use of the ellipsis is not uncommon in certain Seventh-day Adventists' writings in
connection with the Sabbath, the Lord's Day, etc., and we regret that they resort to it in order to
substantiate their position.

In this pamphlet they quote Martin Luther, despite the well-known fact that Luther violently
opposed Sabbatarianism. His refutation of his Sabbatarian colleague, Dr. Carlstadt, is a
monument to his apologetic genius. Thus, to quote Luther in order to support the doctrine of the
Seventh-day Sabbath suggests that Adventists are not familiar with Luther's theology.

We admire the boldness of our Adventist brethren in their claims for the Sabbath, but their
boldness is misplaced and leads to a distorted concept of the value of the law of God, for when a
person believes and teaches that "the fourth commandment is the greatest commandment in the
Decalogue," it is apparent that he has no understanding of the spirit of the law. Volume 4 of the
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia represents the reasons why the Christian church
observes the Lord's Day in preference to the Sabbath, and also clearly states (2629-2634) the
Seventh-day Adventist position.C-50 On page 2633 the Adventists contend: "According to church
history the seventh-day Sabbath was observed by the early church, and no other day was
observed as a Sabbath during the first two or three centuries."

This sentence epitomizes the Adventist propensity for overstating their case; i.e., attempting
to read "Sabbath" into "Lord's Day," which all leading authorities confute as we have seen.

II. PRIMARY ANTI-SABBATARIAN TEXTS

In more than one place, the New Testament comments unfavorably upon the practice of any
type of legalistic day-keeping. In fact, from the ascension of Christ on, the New Testament or
early church observed the first day of the week or the Lord's Day (Revelation 1:10), as we have
endeavored to show. Besides the passages that contrast the Lord's Day with the Sabbath, the
apostle Paul--Hebrew of the Hebrews and Pharisee of the Pharisees, apart from our Lord, the
outstanding New Testament authority--on the Law of Moses declared that the Sabbath as "the
law" was fulfilled at the cross and was not binding upon the Christian (Colossians 2:16-17).
Since the subject is so vast in scope, the reader is referred to the bibliography, especially to Dr.
Louis Sperry Chafer's Grace, and Norman C. Deck's The Lord's Day or the Sabbath, Which?
These contain excellent refutations of Sabbatarianism. D. M. Canright in Seventh-day Adventism
Renounced also dealt exhaustively and ably with the Sabbath subject.

To narrow the issue down to simple analysis, we shall review the major New Testament
texts that in context and in the light of syntactical analysis refute the Sabbatarian concept, and
substantiate the historical position of the Christian church since the days of the apostles and the
Fathers.

A. Colossians 2:13-17

Of all of the statements in the New Testament, these verses most strongly refute the
Sabbatarian claim for observance of the Jewish Sabbath. Let us listen to the inspired counsel of
Paul, not only the greatest of the apostles, but once a Pharisee whose passion for fulfilling the
law outperformed that of the most zealous Seventh-day Adventist:

And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having
canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set
aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made
a public example of them, triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one
pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival
or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the
substance belongs to Christ (Colossians 2:13-17, RSV).

This translation, one of the best from the Greek text today, contains tremendously important
teaching.

First, we who were dead have been made alive in Christ and have been forgiven all
trespasses and sins. We are free from the condemnation of the law in all its aspects, because
Christ took our condemnation on the cross. As already observed, there are not two laws, moral
and ceremonial, but one law containing many commandments, all perfectly fulfilled by the life
and death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Therefore," the apostle Paul boldly declares, "let no one pass judgment on you in questions
of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a
shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ."

In the face of this clear teaching, Sabbatarians revert to their dual-law theory and argue that
Paul is referring only to observance of the Jewish ceremonial law, not to the Sabbath which,
they insist, is a moral precept because it is one of the Ten Commandments. We have seen,
however, that the Ten Commandments are but a fragment of the moral law encompassed by the
commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9).

Sabbatarians overlook the mass of contradictory evidence and appeal to certain
commentators who do not analyze the uses of the word "Sabbath," or exegete the New
Testament passages where the word occurs. Such commentators are Albert Barnes, Notes on the
New Testament; Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, Critical and Explanatory Commentary; and
Adam Clarke in his Commentary. If a commentator's opinion is not in accord with sound
exegesis, it is only an opinion, and the commentators named above make no grammatical or
textual analysis of the second chapter of Colossians!

Many New Testament commentators try to retain the moral force of the Sabbath (although
all of these transfer it to the first day of the week) because it is the subject of the fourth
commandment. For this serious theological error there is no warrant in the New Testament.
Sabbatarians fail to mention that all the commentators whom they cite repudiate the Sabbath,
and most of them teach that the true Sabbath was the Lord's Day (Revelation 1:10), carried over
by the early church from apostolic tradition as a memorial to redemption or the re-creation of
mankind through the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit. Adventists are therefore without
historical or exegetical support when they make the Lord's Day the same as the Sabbath.

With regard to this passage, Adventists maintain that since the word in Colossians 2:16
(sabbaton) is in the plural, it means the ceremonial Sabbaths, not the weekly Sabbath, which
they contend is still in effect. However, their argument seems to be that Colossians 2:16-17
refers to Sabbaths and feast days that were shadows of things to come, and thus part of
ceremonial laws; but that the Seventh-day Sabbath is not a shadow of redemption but a
memorial of Creation and part of the moral law. The leading modern translations, following the
best New Testament scholars, render Colossians 2:16 as "a Sabbath" or "a Sabbath day," not
"Sabbath days" as in the King James Version. Their reason for doing this is well stated by W. E.
Vine:

Sabbaton or sabbata, the latter the plural form, was transliterated from the
Aramaic word, which was mistaken for a plural: hence the singular sabbaton
was formed from it. … In the epistles the only direct mentions are in Colossians
2:16 "a Sabbath day" (RV), which rightly has the singular … where it is listed
among things that were "a shadow of things to come"; i.e., of the age introduced
at Pentecost, and in Hebrews 4:4-11 where the perpetual sabbatismos is
appointed for believers. … For the first three centuries of the Christian era the
first day of the week was never confounded with the Sabbath; the confusion of
the Jewish and Christian institutions was due to declension from apostolic
teaching.C-51

Supplementing Dr. Vine's statement is the comment of M. R. Vincent:

Sabbath days (sabbaton), the weekly festivals revised correctly as day, the
plural being used for the singular. See Luke 4:31 and Acts 20:7. The plural is
only once used in the New Testament of more than a single day (Acts 17:2). In
the Old Testament, the same enumeration of sacred seasons occurs in 1
Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 2:4; 2 Chronicles 31:3; Ezekiel 45:17; Hosea
2:11.C-52

As Dr. Vincent points out, the revisers' rendering of sabbaton in the singular accords with
the use of the word throughout the New Testament. It is significant that in fifty-nine of sixty
occurrences in the New Testament, Adventists affirm that they refer to the weekly Sabbath; but
in the sixtieth occurrence they maintain it does not, although all grammatical authorities
contradict them.

With regard to Albert Barnes, whom the Adventists delight to quote because he agrees with
their interpretation of Colossians 2, his comments are demolished by Dean Henry Alford, a truly
great biblical exegete whom the Adventists also frequently quote. Wrote Dean Alford
concerning Colossians 2:

Let no one therefore judge you (pronounce judgment of right or wrong over
you, sit in judgment on you) … in respect of feasts or new moon, or Sabbaths
(i.e., yearly, monthly, or weekly celebrations). (The relative may refer either to
the aggregate of the observances mentioned, or to the last mentioned, i.e., the
Sabbath. Or it may refer to all.)C-53

After making significant comments on the grammar, Dean Alford went even further in his
insistence that in verse seventeen, grammatically speaking, the apostle Paul contrasts all the
Jewish laws with their fulfillment in Christ, the former being a shadow, pointing forward to the
real substance (soma), which was Christ.

Alford summed up his comments thus:

The blessings of the Christian covenant: These are the substance, and the
Jewish ordinances the mere type of resemblance, as the shadow is of the living
man. … We may observe that if the ordinance of the Sabbath had been in any
form of lasting obligation on the Christian church, it would have been quite
impossible for the apostle to have spoken thus. The fact of an obligatory rest of
one day, whether the seventh or the first, would have been directly in the teeth of
his assertion here: The holding of such would have been still to retain the
shadow, while we possess the substance. And no answer can be given to this by
the transparent special-pleading, that he is speaking only of that which was
Jewish in such observances: the whole argument being general, and the axiom of
verse seventeen universally applicable.C-54

We see that, from a grammatical standpoint, if the Adventists insist that Colossians 2:16
refers only to ceremonial Sabbaths, they run against the use of the word for weekly Sabbaths in
the entire New Testament; and, as Alford points out, if "Sabbaths" be allowed, it must include
all Sabbaths, weekly, monthly, or yearly. On the other hand, if Adventists admit the correction
of the revisers and render Colossians 2:16 "a Sabbath day," its use in the New Testament still
refers almost exclusively (see Acts 17:2) to the weekly Sabbath, which Adventists maintain is
permanent, although Paul deliberately classes it with the penalty for violating the ordinances
that Christ by His death nailed to the cross! (Colossians 2:14).

Dr. J. B. Lightfoot, an acknowledged authority on New Testament Greek, makes this
interesting observation:

The word sabbata is derived from the Aramaic shabbatha (as distinguished
from the Hebrew), and accordingly preserves the Aramaic termination of "a."
Hence it was naturally declined as a plural noun, sabbata, sabbaton. The New
Testament sabbata is only once used distinctively as more than a single day, and
there the plurality of meaning is brought out by the attached numeral (Acts
17:2).C-55

It is apparent, therefore, that the use of "Sabbath" in the New Testament refutes the
Adventist contention that in Colossians 2 it means Sabbaths other than the weekly Sabbath of
the Decalogue. Since it is impossible to retain the "shadow" while possessing the "substance"
(Colossians 2:17), the Jewish Sabbath and the handwriting of ordinances "which was contrary to
us" found their complete fulfillment in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Seventh-day Adventists are also deprived of the support of Albert Barnes, because he admits
that if Paul had "used the word in the singular number, 'the Sabbath,' it would then of course
have been clear that he meant to teach that that commandment had ceased to be binding and that
a Sabbath was no longer to be observed.C-56

Since Barnes makes this admission, and since modern conservative scholarship establishes
the singular rendering of "Sabbath" in the New Testament (see RSV, et al.), Adventists find even
less support for their position.

We conclude our comments on this passage of Scripture by observing that in Numbers 28
and 29, which list the very "ordinances" referred to in Colossians 2:16-17, the Sabbath is
grouped with burnt offerings and new moons (Numbers 28:1-15). Since these offerings and
feasts have passed away as the shadow (skia), fulfilled in the substance (soma) of the cross of
Christ, how can the Seventh-day Sabbath be retained? In the light of this Scripture alone, I
contend that the argument for Sabbath observance collapses, and the Christian stands under "the
perfect law of liberty," which enables him to fulfill "the righteousness of the law" by the
imperative of love.

B. Galatians 4:9-11

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God,
how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose
slaves you want to be once more? You observe days, and months, and seasons,
and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain (RSV).

Paul's epistle to the Galatians was primarily a massive theological effort to bolster the young
church against the Judaizers who added to the gospel of grace "another gospel" (1:6), and
sought to "pervert the gospel of Christ" (1:7).

Though steeped in Jewish lore and the law of Moses, Paul steadfastly opposed the Judaizers.
The entire epistle to the Galatians is an apologetic against those who would seek to bring the
Christian "under the law." After mentioning the errors into which the Galatian church had
fallen, Paul, evidently with great disgust, remarks, "You observe days, and months, and seasons,
and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain." In the Greek the expression "days, and
months, and seasons, and years," matches both the Septuagint (Greek) translation of the
ordinances in Numbers 28 and 29, of which all Sabbaths are a principal part, and the ordinances
mentioned in Colossians 2. Paul was familiar with the Septuagint and quoted it, and the law,
including the weekly Sabbaths, was so cherished by the Judaizers of his day that its legalistic
observance called forth his strong words. Adventists insist that Paul meant ceremonial feasts and
yearly Sabbaths, not the weekly Sabbath; but Paul's language and the Septuagint translation of
Numbers 28 and 29 refute their objections. It is one thing to interpret your way out of a verse
when your interpretation is feasible; it is another to ignore grammar, context, and comparative
textual analysis (hermeneutics) as our Adventist friends and others appear to do. To substantiate
their interpretation of Paul's statements they do not practice exegesis (taking out of), but
eisegesis (reading into) the texts.

After studying Seventh-day Adventist literature, it is my opinion that the overwhelming
majority of Seventh-day Adventists do not actually consider themselves "under the law." I
believe they fail to realize that by trying to enjoin Sabbath observance upon other members of
the body of Christ, they are in serious danger of transgressing the gospel of grace. To them Paul
says,

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? …
Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint
until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ
came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no
longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through
faith (Galatians 4:21; 3:23-26, RSV).

Bearing in mind that "the law" in its larger connotation includes the entire Pentateuch, it is
apparent from Paul's language that one is "under the law" when he attempts to observe any part
of it, because the Christian has been freed from the law. Seventh-day Adventists are doubtless
Christians, saved by grace, but we do not find scriptural warrant for their attempt to enjoin the
Sabbath upon their fellow believers.

C. Romans 13:8-10

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his
neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit
adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any
other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your
neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the
fulfilling of the law (RSV).

It is really unnecessary to comment extensively upon the foregoing verses because they
speak plainly for themselves.

The Greek word pleroma, translated respectively "fulfilled" and "fulfilling" in Romans
13:8-10, RSV, appears ninety times in the New Testament and has the same basic meaning. The
apostle Paul surely understood this term; since the Adventists confess the divine inspiration of
the Scriptures, they must concede that the Holy Spirit guided his pen. Quoting from the
Decalogue upon which the Adventists rely for perpetual Sabbath-keeping, Paul declares, "The
commandments … are summed up in this sentence, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." In verse eight the
apostle declares, "He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law"; and since he quotes from the
Decalogue as part of the law, the fourth commandment is also fulfilled, not by rigid observance
of a given day, but by loving one's neighbor as oneself! Since it is impossible in the Christian
context to love one's neighbor at all apart from loving God as the prerequisite, the issue is clear.
The false teaching that love of one's neighbor does not fulfill all the law of God comes from a
failure to realize that our love for God and neighbor stems from God's initiating act of love in
Christ. This law of love is first enunciated in Leviticus 19:18, which our Lord coupled with the
commandment to "love the Lord thy God" (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), and stated that observance of
those two commandments fulfilled "all the law and the prophets."

While our Adventist brethren may seek to escape the implications of Colossians 2:14-17
and to explain away Galatians 4:9-11, in the present passage the Holy Spirit twice declares that
love fulfills the law. They cannot exempt the Sabbath from this context without destroying the
unity of the "Eternal Ten," hence their dilemma.

In Galatians Paul also declares, "The whole law is fulfilled in one word. 'You shall love
your neighbor as yourself' " (5:14, RSV). So we see that Paul's theology rested upon the
imperative of love. Therefore, it is my conviction that the Holy Spirit, not the Christian church,
is the authority for the nullification of all Sabbath-keeping. How any student of New Testament
Greek could read the unmistakable language of the apostle and then exclude the Sabbath
commandment from his argument passes my understanding.

D. Romans 14:4-6, 10, 12-13

Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own
master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to
make him stand. One man esteems one day as better than another, while another
man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.
He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats
in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains,
abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. … Why do you pass
judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we
shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. … So each of us shall give
account of himself to God. Then let us no more pass judgment on one another,
but rather decide never to put a stumbling-block or hindrance in the way of a
brother (RSV).

In this writer's opinion, and according to Romans 14, the Seventh-day Adventist is entitled
to observe the Seventh-day Sabbath if he feels that this is what God desires. Further than this,
the Holy Spirit adjures us not to "pass judgment" on our fellow Christians regarding such
matters as observance of days and diet. I believe that Seventh-day Adventists, Seventh-day
Baptists, and Sabbatarians of other religious groups have the right to worship on the seventh day
in the liberty wherein Christ has made us free. It is wrong and unchristian to discriminate
against Sabbatarians merely because they "esteem" the Sabbath above the first day of the week,
or the Lord's Day. I suggest it is no more legalistic for them to observe the seventh day out of
conviction than it is for the Christian church to observe the first day. It is a matter of liberty and
conscience.

If Seventh-day Adventists, however, would follow the biblical teaching of Romans 14 with
regard to those who wish to observe Sunday, we would not have the conflict that has been
generated by their dogmatic insistence that all should worship on the Sabbath. The sad fact is,
however, that all Sabbatarians transgress the very counsels given by the apostle Paul in the
above cited passage.

Of course, Seventh-day Adventists feel that they are called upon to perpetuate or promulgate
certain truths that they believe are found in the Word of God, and which they believe are to be
emphasized in "these last days." Furthermore, they believe that the counsels of Ellen G. White
emphasize the importance of these truths. Granting their basic premise that God has indeed
spoken to them concerning Sabbath observance, it is easy to see the source of their zeal. But I
feel that there is good evidence that the "Spirit of prophecy" is not what they claim; and their
"special truths" have, to say the least, questionable theological origins. Non-Adventists reject
the claims that they make for White, and merely because Adventists accept her counsel is no
reason for other Christians to feel bound to do so. We repeat--the faith the Adventists place in
"the Spirit of prophecy," which has endorsed their "special truths," sincere though they may be,
does not entitle them to contradict the counsel of the Holy Spirit as revealed in the Word of
God. This I believe they have done. I could cite scores of references from contemporary
Adventist writers who do indeed pass judgment upon their Christian brethren and upon the
Christian church at large, because the latter do not observe the Seventh-day Sabbath. It is my
opinion in these cases that they neglect the counsel of the Holy Spirit: "One man esteems one
day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let everyone be fully
convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. …
Happy is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves … for whatever does not
proceed from faith is sin" (Romans 14:5-6, 22-23, RSV).

By contending that other members of the body of Christ should recognize "the Spirit of
prophecy," Seventh-day Adventists appear to juxtapose the "Spirit of prophecy" with the Holy
Spirit who says, "Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to
put a stumbling-block or hindrance in the way of a brother" (v. 13).

There can be little doubt that the great majority of Christians who worship on Sunday would
never have discriminated against the Seventh-day Adventists, had the latter not insisted upon
"passing judgment" on first-day observance as opposed to Sabbath-keeping. Although
motivated by the best intentions and sincere in faith, Adventists have nevertheless put a
stumbling block or hindrance in the way of fellow Christians by their rigid Sabbatarianism. It is
indeed unfortunate that such a source of strife exists among Christians.

The fourteenth chapter of Romans is a masterpiece on the subject of Christian liberty, not
only in diet but in worship, and in the context of all Paul's writings on the subject it appears that
Adventists ignore the plain teaching of Scripture about the observance of days. We ask, should
they not be more charitable in the light of 1 Corinthians 13? They would thus avoid opposition
from their fellow Christians.

These four passages from the writings of Paul reflect the position of the historical Christian
church from the times of the Fathers and the Reformers to the leading exegetical commentators
of our day. The reader should remember that Adventist arguments, although buttressed by
selected Bible passages (sometimes cited out of context), must be studied in the clear light of
these four passages, which contain the comprehensive New Testament teaching on
Sabbatarianism. The early Christian church met upon the first day of the week (1 Corinthians
16:2). The disciples received the Holy Spirit on the first day of the week; collections were taken
for the saints on the first day of the week; and historical evidence establishes that the first day of
the week was the Lord's Day, the memorial of the new creation in Christ Jesus that completely
fulfilled the law in Christ.

No amount of argument by Adventists can alter these facts, and if we believe the apostle
Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit, it is apparent that we must reject Sabbatarianism. We do
not judge Seventh-day Adventists for their Sabbath observance, and they in turn should extend
the same charity to their fellow Christians. Only in the recognition of the principles of Romans
14 can true unity in the body of Christ be realized. There can be no legislation of moral choice
on the basis of "special revelation." This we believe is the case in Seventh-day Adventism, for it
was Ellen G. White's "Vision" confirming Joseph Bates' "Seal of the Living God" concept as
set forth in his pamphlet on the Sabbath that established Sabbatarianism in Seventh-day
Adventism. The Bible must be the supreme court of appeal and authority, and the verdict of this
court, it appears to me, invalidates the contentions of our Adventist friends. C-57

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