Christ and the Sabbath
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the May 3, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“Remember the Sabbath
day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the
seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work,
neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your
animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord
made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested
on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it
holy.” Exodus 20:8-11, NIV
The
Seventh-day Sabbath, a day commonly referred to as Saturday by non-sabbatarians
is a foundational dogma of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.[i]
This is in spite of the historical evidence that William Miller’s advent
movement from which the denomination arose was not sabbatarian. Not until
approximately five years after the Great Disappointment of 1844 did the
doctrine find enough acceptance among a group of
former Millerites to be published in their official church paper, “The Present
Truth,” predecessor to the “Advent Review” of today. The original impetus
brought to bear on the fledgling flock by Joseph Bates appears to have originated
from the Seventh Day Baptists, a denomination founded approximately two
centuries earlier,[ii] in the person of Rachel Oakes, who convinced a
Millerite Methodist preacher named Frederick Wheeler. Wheeler in turn shared
that message with Mr Bates.
That the doctrine
should become deeply imbedded within denominational theology perhaps should not
be surprising since this was 14 years before the denomination officially
organized in 1863. By then it had overcome any dissent to become common
practice. During this interlude, such issues as when the Sabbath commences were
ironed out. Some, Joseph Bates among them, advocated that Sabbath should be
from 6 PM to 6 PM. Others took the Seventh Day Baptist position that it went
from sundown to sundown. Ellen and James White apparently sided with Bates
initially and then by 1847 came to support the other position.[iii]
The seventh-day Sabbath became so integrated with Adventist belief that
references to it in Ellen White’s published works run to several pages in the
index to those writings.
So why, if
it is such a fundamental teaching, do so many denominations attend church on
Sunday as opposed to Saturday. Adventists have developed a rather involved
theology to explain this. Like some other Christians they see a spiritual
battle raging between Christ and Satan for the hearts and minds of men. However,
they see that battle as focusing on a vast conspiracy to replace the true
seventh-day Sabbath with a spurious substitute. This is so strongly felt that
it is at times identified as THE true mark of who will and who will not be
saved when Jesus returns, with the Sabbath being God’s seal, and the alternate
day being the Mark of the Beast referred to in Revelation, chapter thirteen.
Perhaps it is because of this conspiratorial tone that often permeates the
evangelism of Adventism that so many parishioners seem to be caught up in one
conspiracy theory after another, as though it were a matter of faith to
constantly be seeking conspiracies to expose.
As part of the
conspiracy, Constantine’s fourth century decree establishing the “venerable day
of the Sun”[iv]
as a holy day is often cited as evidence of collusion between the Roman Empire
and the Catholic Church to supplant the proper day of worship. This became a
fundamental part of Seventh-day Adventism. Over the decades it grew to become an
eventual belief in a vast involved conspiracy headed by the Roman Catholic
Church which was held to be the embodiment of much of the evil of the Roman
Empire. As a result, the denomination has been felt to be anti-Catholic in much
the same hostile way that some people are anti-Semitic. To be sure, there are
some within the denomination that are perhaps rabidly so, seeing Jesuits behind
every tree and bush. While the majority of Seventh-day Adventists do not engage
in anti-Catholic vitriol, denominational publications like “The Great
Controversy,” by Ellen White continue to be published. However, some see the
book as so anti-Catholic that versions made available to the wider public are sometimes
edited to tone down such rhetoric.
It has not
helped diffuse the conspiracy theorists when older Catholic catechisms for
converts asserted that the Catholic Church arbitrarily changed the day of
worship from Saturday to Sunday.[v]
Is this true? Did the Roman Catholic Church seek to subvert a biblical day of
worship? Perhaps not, in spite of what the Catholics themselves
have said. Maybe the impetus for change occurred much earlier and the decree of
Constantine was merely the political recognition and accommodation of a status quo already pretty much
accomplished.
Some feel
that the earliest challenges to Sabbath observance happened during the late
first century, CE, only decades after Christ’s resurrection. Ignatius, the
third bishop of Antioch wrote against the keeping of the Sabbath.[vi]
In part, he wrote "If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master..." Possibly the latest date for his death is 117 CE. His birth shortly after Christ’s
death makes it possible and even likely that he personally met one or more of
the Apostles. As might be expected, apologists for sabbatarianism dispute that
interpretation of his Koine Greek epistle. However, the nature of apologetics
is not to search for truth but rather to assume truth is already found and
defend it. Theologians on the other hand are more like Mulder on the television
series “The X Files” and believe the full truth is still out there awaiting
discovery.
A Seventh
Day Baptist apologist, Bob Thiel, PhD, advances a typical explanation of why
what Ignatius wrote does not challenge sabbatarianism.[vii]
Because the epistle does not use the Greek word for “day,” Dr Thiel maintains
it could not be referring to an alternate day of worship. He maintains that the
insertion of the word “day” by the translators is inappropriate and that it
alters the meaning. However, he is left to explain the clear writing against
Sabbath observance in the passage. He does so by committing the sin he so
vehemently condemns in the translators by inserting his own word into the text,
“judaically.” In doing so he argues that Ignatius was not against the
seventh-day Sabbath. He was only against keeping it like the Jews did. This may
be a means to ignore early Christian anti-sabbatarianism, but it is a slim
thread to cling to when considering the historical context.
First
century Christianity was split between the Jewish Christians and the Hellenic
Christians. Both competed for authority within Judaism and the sect of
Jesus within that religious system. After the first revolt, the Jewish state
was placed under the jurisdiction of Syria. The Jews naturally chafed at
losing control of their country and eventually revolted again. While Jewish
Christians may have been sympathetic to this antipathy toward Rome and its
Syrian proxy, the Hellenic Christians may have felt differently with a more accommodating
attitude toward their Syrian overlords. During this time, Antioch in Syria
became an important Christian center for missionary activity. Paul, Silas,
Barnabus, and Peter all worked in Antioch.
As hostility
toward Rome grew in Jerusalem and Judea, perhaps those more aligned with the
church in Antioch sought to distance themselves from that activity. By the time
of Bar Kochba’s revolt, the fissures of that separation had become deep and was
no doubt made even deeper by Kochba’s claim to be the Messiah, something
unacceptable to the Christians, especially those who had no common religious
tie to Bar Kochba as the Jews might have.[viii]
Perhaps after the first revolt in 70 CE and certainly after the second one in
132 CE when all Jews were banned from Jerusalem, Christians sought to avoid
anything that would identify them as Jews. Sabbatarianism is arguably one of
the more obvious practices of Jewish worshippers. Rather than being an evil
conspiracy, abandonment of Sabbath observance may have simply been a practical
matter. Theological justification for doing so may have been found in Paul’s
argument for abandoning circumcision. After all if one everlasting covenant was
done away with at the cross, why not another?
So does the
Sabbath have any significance today? It depends on how far one is on the
continuum of biblical literalism. Those who see more metaphor and principles of
intent in the Bible may not feel that it is relevant. Those who see the Bible
as a set of rules to follow to be saved will perhaps feel that it is extremely
relevant. However, even among such literalists there is a certain amount of picking
and choosing as to which rules to follow. For instance, some will follow the rules
regarding food purity in Leviticus, chapter eleven, but ignore the purity laws
surrounding birth and menses.[ix]
Others will ignore circumcision but advocate keeping the required religious
feasts.
Nonetheless,
if one is to be biblically literal, the Sabbath is more to be seen as a command
than the observance of Sunday might be. Will it be THE marker that separates
the saved from the lost? If so we might have to admit that secular Jews who
observe Sabbath would have an edge over Christians who do not. That may not be
the case. However, there is also little likelihood that observing Sunday will
save us either. Those who observe it with understanding will say that it is
about the deeper relationship to the resurrection that makes it important. But
the Seventh-day Sabbath also offers a deeper relationship to the Creation that
many may be missing by ignoring its observance. Maybe we should be open to both
perspectives and the unique richness they each offer.
