Seventh-Day Adventists insist that we ought to keep the Sabbath. Are they right? When I have discussed this subject with them, I have often been told to pray about it. That sounds just like the Mormons telling you to pray about the Book of Mormon. If something is false, I do not need to pray about it. But let us look and see what Scripture reveals to us.
Look up the word "sabbath" outside of the Gospels and you will find that it occurs 11 times. 9 of them are in the book of Acts, which is a transitional book. The last two are in the evidences against Sabbath keeping: Colossians 2:16 and Hebrews 4:9. The first one in Acts is a descriptor—"Sabbath day's journey." Acts 13:14 says that they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and sat down. In verse 27, they are reasoning with them, telling them that the inhabitants of Jerusalem fulfilled the prophets, whom they read every Sabbath, by condemning Jesus. Verse 42, they asked that they might be reasoned with the next Sabbath. Verse 44, they were gathered to hear the words of God—by the Apostles reasoning with them. Acts 15:21 is again a condemnation against them, saying that their reading of Moses on the Sabbath preached Christ. Acts 16:13, they went to a place where there was a meeting of women and reasoned with them. Acts 17:2 and 18:4, they again were reasoning with the Jews. There is not one reference to worshiping on the Sabbath or observing it. They were commanded to begin in Jerusalem and go into the entire world preaching the Gospel. The Jews gathered in the synagogues to read from Moses and the prophets every Sabbath. What better time to reason with them than when they open the Scriptures that preached Christ?
Exodus 31 clearly states that the Sabbath was "a sign forever between [God] and the people of Israel." The Israel in question here is national Israel, not spiritual Israel. Paul says in Colossians 2:16, "Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of...or with regard to...a Sabbath" and continues in verse 17, "They are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." Hebrews 3:7-4:13 speak of the rest for God's people, which are the Christians. It says in 4:3, "We who have believed enter that rest." In verse 9 it says, "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" and in verse 10 states, "For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His." Again, refer to verse 3. When we are born again, we enter that rest because Christ Jesus is the Christian's Sabbath. Every day is a day of rest in Christ for the Christian. If you want to dedicate any day of the week toward worship, you are free to do so.
As for Sunday, the SDA ignore Scripture and try to place the Christian under the Old Covenant. The fact is, 9 of the 10 commandments were repeated in the New Testament. The 4th was not repeated. Why do you suppose that is? Let us look at their reiteration:
Jesus said that He was the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5). Read through the New Testament and count the number of times that He shut the Pharisees up who were complaining about Him and His disciples not keeping the Sabbath. His disciples eating the grains of wheat, His healing the crippled man, etc., etc. The SDA claims that Jesus kept the Sabbath. When? Where? We see the Pharisees constantly torqued with Jesus because He and His disciples were not keeping the Sabbath (John 9:15). He told them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working" (John 5:17). God rested once, after He finished creation; not continually. Was the day that God rested the Sabbath? No, it was not! Where in Scripture does it teach such a thing? It does not! The command to keep the Sabbath holy was not given until the Exodus. No one prior to the Exodus was commanded to keep the Sabbath. Jesus also said that "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark. 2:27). The Pharisees keeping thereof had made man for the Sabbath. Jesus said, "No! I am the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man." He is that Sabbath rest, and believers have entered into it. "I died to the Law" (Gal. 2:19). "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law" (Gal. 5:18). "...abolishing the law of commandments..." (Eph. 2:15). "Canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he sat aside, nailing it to the cross" (Col. 2:14).
If Sabbath keeping is so important for the disciple of Christ, why was it not mentioned in His sermon on the mount or any of His teachings? Why did Jesus not command Sabbath keeping? Why did the Apostles not command Sabbath keeping? Why did the Jerusalem counsel not command Sabbath keeping (Acts 15)? Why was Sabbath keeping not commanded to anyone prior to the Exodus? Read Matthew 12:1-14 carefully. Jesus is clearly saying that His disciples are like the priests who may work in the temple every Sabbath and be innocent of breaking the Sabbath. When Jesus says that He is "Lord of the Sabbath" He is declaring that He is above the Sabbath. He may do what He wishes on the Sabbath and therefore His disciples may do whatever they wish as well.
Furthermore, there is not a single individual alive today who knows for sure when exactly the Sabbath is. First of all, the Jewish calendar is nothing like ours. It continually changes. Second of all, in 1582, Gregory XIII found a miscalculation in the calendar and decreed to drop October 5-14 (10 days) and to drop 3 leap years in every century. In England, 11 days (September 3-13) were dropped in 1752 (in addition to other changes). If you drop all these days, when does the Sabbath truly occur? For all we know, our Wednesday could be the Sabbath. This evidence just goes to prove how ridiculous this argument of theirs is. Even if you could figure out when the exact Sabbath is, it does not change all the other facts that we have looked at and will look at in this article.
The SDA fail to understand what the Sabbath was all about. They consider "keeping the Sabbath" to merely be about "worshiping" on the Sabbath. There was no eating out allowed on the Sabbath. God commanded how it was to be observed: It was to be kept from sunset to sunset (Lev. 23:32); no burden was to be carried (Jer. 17:21); no fire kindled (Ex. 35:3); no cooking done (Ex. 16:23); the penalty for doing any of these things during the Sabbath was death (Num. 15). Is this what the SDA want us to do? Furthermore, if the SDA is going to argue for Sabbath keeping, then they had best keep all of the Sabbaths. The Sabbath was not merely "Saturday" (from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday). They had weekly Sabbaths, monthly Sabbaths, yearly Sabbaths... If the SDA cannot even keep the first commandment perfectly, why do they attempt to try and force Christians to keep the fourth commandment? They fail to understand what Jesus said, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF'" (Matt. 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-31) and what Paul said, "he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,' and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:8-10).
The SDA frequently quote foolish statements made by others in an attempt to use them as prooftexts to support their agenda. With regard to their false teaching that Sunday is the mark of the beast, they quote the Catholic Record from 1923, which says, "Sunday is our mark of authority..... The church is above the Bible, and this transference of sabbath observance is proof of that fact," and run with it as if it is the Gospel truth. They also quote from The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, which reads:
What the SDA fail to realize or understand is that Sunday worship was in effect long before the Catholic church ever came into power in 538 A.D. The spirit of the Catholic church may have been at work as early as the 300's A.D., but that does not negate the fact that Sunday gathering and worship was already long in place. Sunday worship was in effect before 70 A.D. Acts 20:1-7 is proof positive for Sunday worship. Communion, preaching (Acts 20:7) and tithing (1 Corinthians 16:2) all took place on the first day of the week, which is Sunday. Just because the Catholic church claims to have initiated it does not make that claim true. The SDA's authority is not the Bible, as they claim, but rather every other source that agrees in some pretense with what they already believe (such as the above examples).
The Apostle John wrote his epistles well after 70 A.D. If there was error with regard to keeping the Sabbath, he would have wrote to correct it. However, he did no such thing. Less than 10 years after John’s death, the epistle of Barnabas recorded, “Wherefore, also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead” (100 A.D.). In 107 A.D., the epistle of Ignatius read, “Be not deceived with strange doctrines, nor with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live according to the Jewish Law, we acknowledge that we have not received grace....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.” The writings of Justin Martyr between 145 and 150 A.D. read, “And on the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read....But Sunday is the day on which we all hold a common assembly, because it is the first day of the week on which God...made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.” Irenaeus, who was the disciple of Polycarp, who was the direct disciple of the Apostle John, wrote between 155 to 202 A.D., “The Mystery of the Lord's Resurrection may not be celebrated on any other day than the Lord's Day, and on this alone should we observe the breaking off of the Paschal Feast.” There are plenty more early church fathers whom we can consult to verify the fact that Christians gathered together on Sunday in order to commemorate and celebrate the Lord’s resurrection.
Let us be realistic here. The SDA was first developed in the 1800's along with several other cults such as Dispensationalism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Darwinism, Communism... Shall I continue? According to the SDA, the church was without truth for 1800 years and God, in all His great wisdom and providence, deliberately left His church languished and without truth for 1800 years. That means that all the great minds the church has ever produced were wrong in their theology until the SDA came along to correct them. Sorry, but I do not buy it. Especially considering the fact that Ellen G. White is a false prophet/teacher. Nothing she did or said is or was or will ever be equal or greater than Scripture, as I have seen the SDA teach. This is different from Catholocism how? Watch this video by a former SDA who came out of it and speaks on the spirit (not the Spirit) of the movement. Are all SDA churches the same? Clearly not! But the majority, yes.
Look up the word "sabbath" outside of the Gospels and you will find that it occurs 11 times. 9 of them are in the book of Acts, which is a transitional book. The last two are in the evidences against Sabbath keeping: Colossians 2:16 and Hebrews 4:9. The first one in Acts is a descriptor—"Sabbath day's journey." Acts 13:14 says that they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and sat down. In verse 27, they are reasoning with them, telling them that the inhabitants of Jerusalem fulfilled the prophets, whom they read every Sabbath, by condemning Jesus. Verse 42, they asked that they might be reasoned with the next Sabbath. Verse 44, they were gathered to hear the words of God—by the Apostles reasoning with them. Acts 15:21 is again a condemnation against them, saying that their reading of Moses on the Sabbath preached Christ. Acts 16:13, they went to a place where there was a meeting of women and reasoned with them. Acts 17:2 and 18:4, they again were reasoning with the Jews. There is not one reference to worshiping on the Sabbath or observing it. They were commanded to begin in Jerusalem and go into the entire world preaching the Gospel. The Jews gathered in the synagogues to read from Moses and the prophets every Sabbath. What better time to reason with them than when they open the Scriptures that preached Christ?
Exodus 31 clearly states that the Sabbath was "a sign forever between [God] and the people of Israel." The Israel in question here is national Israel, not spiritual Israel. Paul says in Colossians 2:16, "Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of...or with regard to...a Sabbath" and continues in verse 17, "They are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." Hebrews 3:7-4:13 speak of the rest for God's people, which are the Christians. It says in 4:3, "We who have believed enter that rest." In verse 9 it says, "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" and in verse 10 states, "For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His." Again, refer to verse 3. When we are born again, we enter that rest because Christ Jesus is the Christian's Sabbath. Every day is a day of rest in Christ for the Christian. If you want to dedicate any day of the week toward worship, you are free to do so.
As for Sunday, the SDA ignore Scripture and try to place the Christian under the Old Covenant. The fact is, 9 of the 10 commandments were repeated in the New Testament. The 4th was not repeated. Why do you suppose that is? Let us look at their reiteration:
- To worship the Lord God only (1st commandment): no less than 50 times (Matt. 2:2; 2:8; 2:11; 4:9; 4:10; 14:22; 15:9; 28:9; 28:17; Mark 7:7; Luke 4:7; 4:8; 24:52: John 4:20, 21, 22 (x2), 23, 24 (x2); 9:38; 12:20; Acts 7:43; 8:27; 16:14; 17:23 (x2); 18:7; 18:13; 19:27; 24:11; Rom. 1:25; 12:1; 1 Cor. 14:25; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:18; Heb. 1:6; 9:1; 9:6; 10:2; 11:21; Rev. 4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 9:20; 11:1; 11:16; 14:7; 15:4; 19:4; 19:10; 22:8; 22:9).
- Idolatry (2nd commandment) condemned 20 times (Acts 18:20, 29; Rom. 1:25; 1 Cor. 6:9; chapter 8; 10:7, 14; 12:2; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Thess. 1:9; Gal. 5:20; Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5; 1 Pet. 4:3; 1 John 5:21; Rev. 2:14, 20; 9:20; 21:8; 22:15).
- Profanity (3rd commandment) condemned 4 times (Matt. 12:36; Eph. 5:4; Rom. 2:24; Rev. 16:9).
- Honoring Parents (5th commandment) is taught 6 times (Matt. 15:5; 19:19; Mark 7:10; 10:19; Luke 18:20; Eph. 6:2).
- Murder (6th commandment) condemned 7 times (Matt. 5:21; 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20; Rom. 1:29; 13:9; Eph. 4:28).
- Adultery (7th commandment) condemned 12 times (Matt. 5:27, 28, 32; 19:9, 18; Mark 10:11, 19; Luke 16:18; 18:20; Rom. 13:9; James 2:11; 2 Pet. 2:14).
- Theft (8th commandment) condemned 6 times (Matt. 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20; Rom. 2:21; 13:9; Eph. 4:28).
- False witness (9th commandment) condemned 4 times (Matt. 15:9; 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20).
- Covetousness (10th commandment) condemned 10 times (Mark 7:22; Luke 12:15; Rom. 1:28; 7:7: 13:9; Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5; Heb. 13:5; 2 Pet. 2:14).
Jesus said that He was the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5). Read through the New Testament and count the number of times that He shut the Pharisees up who were complaining about Him and His disciples not keeping the Sabbath. His disciples eating the grains of wheat, His healing the crippled man, etc., etc. The SDA claims that Jesus kept the Sabbath. When? Where? We see the Pharisees constantly torqued with Jesus because He and His disciples were not keeping the Sabbath (John 9:15). He told them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working" (John 5:17). God rested once, after He finished creation; not continually. Was the day that God rested the Sabbath? No, it was not! Where in Scripture does it teach such a thing? It does not! The command to keep the Sabbath holy was not given until the Exodus. No one prior to the Exodus was commanded to keep the Sabbath. Jesus also said that "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark. 2:27). The Pharisees keeping thereof had made man for the Sabbath. Jesus said, "No! I am the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man." He is that Sabbath rest, and believers have entered into it. "I died to the Law" (Gal. 2:19). "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law" (Gal. 5:18). "...abolishing the law of commandments..." (Eph. 2:15). "Canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he sat aside, nailing it to the cross" (Col. 2:14).
If Sabbath keeping is so important for the disciple of Christ, why was it not mentioned in His sermon on the mount or any of His teachings? Why did Jesus not command Sabbath keeping? Why did the Apostles not command Sabbath keeping? Why did the Jerusalem counsel not command Sabbath keeping (Acts 15)? Why was Sabbath keeping not commanded to anyone prior to the Exodus? Read Matthew 12:1-14 carefully. Jesus is clearly saying that His disciples are like the priests who may work in the temple every Sabbath and be innocent of breaking the Sabbath. When Jesus says that He is "Lord of the Sabbath" He is declaring that He is above the Sabbath. He may do what He wishes on the Sabbath and therefore His disciples may do whatever they wish as well.
Furthermore, there is not a single individual alive today who knows for sure when exactly the Sabbath is. First of all, the Jewish calendar is nothing like ours. It continually changes. Second of all, in 1582, Gregory XIII found a miscalculation in the calendar and decreed to drop October 5-14 (10 days) and to drop 3 leap years in every century. In England, 11 days (September 3-13) were dropped in 1752 (in addition to other changes). If you drop all these days, when does the Sabbath truly occur? For all we know, our Wednesday could be the Sabbath. This evidence just goes to prove how ridiculous this argument of theirs is. Even if you could figure out when the exact Sabbath is, it does not change all the other facts that we have looked at and will look at in this article.
The SDA fail to understand what the Sabbath was all about. They consider "keeping the Sabbath" to merely be about "worshiping" on the Sabbath. There was no eating out allowed on the Sabbath. God commanded how it was to be observed: It was to be kept from sunset to sunset (Lev. 23:32); no burden was to be carried (Jer. 17:21); no fire kindled (Ex. 35:3); no cooking done (Ex. 16:23); the penalty for doing any of these things during the Sabbath was death (Num. 15). Is this what the SDA want us to do? Furthermore, if the SDA is going to argue for Sabbath keeping, then they had best keep all of the Sabbaths. The Sabbath was not merely "Saturday" (from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday). They had weekly Sabbaths, monthly Sabbaths, yearly Sabbaths... If the SDA cannot even keep the first commandment perfectly, why do they attempt to try and force Christians to keep the fourth commandment? They fail to understand what Jesus said, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF'" (Matt. 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-31) and what Paul said, "he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,' and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:8-10).
The SDA frequently quote foolish statements made by others in an attempt to use them as prooftexts to support their agenda. With regard to their false teaching that Sunday is the mark of the beast, they quote the Catholic Record from 1923, which says, "Sunday is our mark of authority..... The church is above the Bible, and this transference of sabbath observance is proof of that fact," and run with it as if it is the Gospel truth. They also quote from The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, which reads:
Q. What is the Third Commandment?They even try quoting from Constantine, and do so erroneously. Constantine did not institute Sunday worship, he merely legalized it. His edict reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of The Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits.”
A. The Third Commandment is: Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.
Q. Which is the Sabbath Day?
A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
A. We observe Sunday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.
Q. By what authority did the Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?
A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her.
What the SDA fail to realize or understand is that Sunday worship was in effect long before the Catholic church ever came into power in 538 A.D. The spirit of the Catholic church may have been at work as early as the 300's A.D., but that does not negate the fact that Sunday gathering and worship was already long in place. Sunday worship was in effect before 70 A.D. Acts 20:1-7 is proof positive for Sunday worship. Communion, preaching (Acts 20:7) and tithing (1 Corinthians 16:2) all took place on the first day of the week, which is Sunday. Just because the Catholic church claims to have initiated it does not make that claim true. The SDA's authority is not the Bible, as they claim, but rather every other source that agrees in some pretense with what they already believe (such as the above examples).
The Apostle John wrote his epistles well after 70 A.D. If there was error with regard to keeping the Sabbath, he would have wrote to correct it. However, he did no such thing. Less than 10 years after John’s death, the epistle of Barnabas recorded, “Wherefore, also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead” (100 A.D.). In 107 A.D., the epistle of Ignatius read, “Be not deceived with strange doctrines, nor with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live according to the Jewish Law, we acknowledge that we have not received grace....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.” The writings of Justin Martyr between 145 and 150 A.D. read, “And on the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read....But Sunday is the day on which we all hold a common assembly, because it is the first day of the week on which God...made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.” Irenaeus, who was the disciple of Polycarp, who was the direct disciple of the Apostle John, wrote between 155 to 202 A.D., “The Mystery of the Lord's Resurrection may not be celebrated on any other day than the Lord's Day, and on this alone should we observe the breaking off of the Paschal Feast.” There are plenty more early church fathers whom we can consult to verify the fact that Christians gathered together on Sunday in order to commemorate and celebrate the Lord’s resurrection.
Let us be realistic here. The SDA was first developed in the 1800's along with several other cults such as Dispensationalism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Darwinism, Communism... Shall I continue? According to the SDA, the church was without truth for 1800 years and God, in all His great wisdom and providence, deliberately left His church languished and without truth for 1800 years. That means that all the great minds the church has ever produced were wrong in their theology until the SDA came along to correct them. Sorry, but I do not buy it. Especially considering the fact that Ellen G. White is a false prophet/teacher. Nothing she did or said is or was or will ever be equal or greater than Scripture, as I have seen the SDA teach. This is different from Catholocism how? Watch this video by a former SDA who came out of it and speaks on the spirit (not the Spirit) of the movement. Are all SDA churches the same? Clearly not! But the majority, yes.