Seventh Day Adventism – Of God or of Satan? and The Perpetual Binding Obligation of the Fourth Commandment Defended
Seventh Day Adventists hold that it was the Emperor Constantine’s Edict in the year A.D. 321 which changed the seventh day of the week to the first day to be observed as the Lord’s Day or the Christian Sabbath. This is quite untrue. Constantine, on becoming a Christian, merely ratified what was the universally established practice from the days of the apostles. Ignatius, in his “Epistle” writeen in A.D. 107, Justin Martyr in his “Apology” A.D. 140, Tertuillian (A.D. 160-230) in his “Answer”, Clement of Alexandria in Book VII, ch. 12, A.D. 168, all clearly state that the first day of the week was observed since the days of the apostles as the Christian Sabbath—the day commemorating the Resurrection of Christ from the dead.
“It hath been the constant practice of all Christ’s Churches in the whole world ever since the days of the apostles to this day, to assemble for public worship on the Lord’s Day, as a day set apart thereto by the apostles. Yea, so universal was the judgment and practice that there is no Church, no one writer, or one heretic that I remember to have read of, that can be proved even to have dissented or denied it till of late time.” (Baxter on “The Divine Appointment of the Lord’s Day).
Scriptural Evidences of the Change of Day
“A certain emphasis seems to be placed precisely upon the fact that it was on the first day of the week that He rose. This is true of all the accounts of His rising; Luke, for example, after telling us that Jesus rose ‘on the first day of the week,’ on coming to add the account of His appearing to His two disciples journeying to Emmaus, throws what almost seems to be a superfluous stress on that also having happened “on that very day.” It is in John’s account, however, that this emphasis is most noticeable. “Now, on the first day of the week,” he tells us “cometh Mary Magdalene early,” to find the tomb empty. And then a little later: “When wherefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week,” Jesus showed Himself to His assembled followers…After this pointedly indicating that it was on the evening of precisely the first day of the week that Jesus showed Himself to His assembled disciples, John proceeds equally sharply to define the time of His next showing of Himself to them as ‘after eight days’; that is to say, it was on the first day of the week that His disciples were again within, and Jesus manifested Himself to them. The appearance is strong that our Lord, having crowded the day of His rising with manifestations, disappeared for a whole week to appear again on the first day of the week. George Z. Gray seems justified, therefore, in suggesting that the full effect of our Lord’s sanction of the first day of the week as the appointed day of His meeting with His disciples can be fitly appreciated only by considering with His manifestations also His disappearances…Is it possible to exaggerate the effect of this blank space of time, in fixing and defining the impressions received through His visits…There is an appearance at least that the first day of the week was becoming under this direct sanction of the risen Lord the appointed day of Christian assemblies. That the Christians were early driven to separate themselves from the Jews (observer Acts 19:9) and had soon established regular times of ‘assembling themselves together’ we know from an exhortation to the Hebrews. 1 Corinthians 16:2: ‘Upon the first day of the week let everyone of you lay by Him in store, as God hath prospered him,” ect., suggests that their ordinary day of assembly was on the first day of the week. It is clear from a passage in Acts 20:7, that the custom of “gathering together to break bread was “upon the first day of the week.”…We learn, from a passing reference in Revelation 1:10 that the designation ‘the Lord’s Day’ had already established itself in Christian usage…With such suggestions behind us, we cannot wonder that the Church emerges from the Apostolic age with the first day of the week firmly established as its day of religious observance. Nor can we doubt that apostolic sanction of this establishment of it is involved in this fact”—(“The Foundations of the Sabbath in the Word of God.” By Rev. Prof. B.B. Warfield, D.D., L.L.D.).
Is it not also most significant that not only was the first day of the week the day of which the risen Lord made His appearances to His disciples, but that it was on the first day of the week at Pentecost that the Holy Spirit was poured forth and three thousand added to the Church? His appearances on the first day of the week after His resurrection, and His outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the first day of the week after His ascension, point to the first day of the week as the appointed day of worship. And how often since then in times of revival has the Lord owned and acknowledged the first day of the week by pouring forth the Holy Spirit! And along with these indisputable facts we have the unanimous testimony of the early fathers, as has been already observed, confirming that the first day of the week was in apostolic times kept as the weekly Sabbath. Ignatius, who lived in the days of the apostles and who was martyred in A.D. 107, says: “Be not deceived…for if we still live according to Jewish law we acknowledge that we have not received grace. Those who have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observe the Sabbath, but living up in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death.”
That the change was made in the time of Emperor Constantine is one of the hallucinations of Mrs. Ellen G. White the founder of this false “ism”. It has been observed that Seventh Day Adventism, Christian Science and Theosophy have one thing in common at least—they all had hysterical, neurotic women as their founders. Both Dr. William Russell and Dr. Fairfield, physicians at the Seventh Day Adventist Sanitarium at Battle Creek, attributed Mrs. White’s “visions” as “the result of a diseased organization or condition of brain or nervous system” and were “simply hysterical trances.” (“Seventh Day Adventism Tested by Scripture,” page 15, by A.J. Pollock.)
“Damnable Heresies”
1. In her book, “Patriarchs and Prophets,” Mrs. White writes: “The blood of Christ…was not to cancel sin.” Her co-worker, Uriah Smith, writes: “Christ did not make the atonement when He shed His blood upon the Cross. Let this be forever fixed in the mind.” (Looking Unto Jesus, p. 237) What folly, what madness to build for eternity on the diabolically anti-scriptural views of a neurotic woman! What saith the Scriptures? “The blood maketh atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11): “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace: (Ephesians 1:7); “Made peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:20); “Redemed by the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:19).
2. Mrs. White writes: “Satan bore…the weight and punishment of the sins of the redeemed.” Again what saith the Scriptures? “Who (Christ) His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:26). “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
3. Not only does Mrs. White rob Christ of the glory of having redeemed His people by His precious blood, but she blasphemously asserts that He inherited a sinful nature. “In His humanity, Christ partook of our sinful, fallen nature…On His human side, Christ inherited just what every child of Adam inherits—a sinful nature.” (“Bible readings for the Home Circle,” p. 115). What an awful perversion of the Word of God which testifies that “He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26) and “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
4. Soul sleep is another delusion taught by this sect. And yet the apostle Paul plainly affirms that to depart and to be with Christ is far better (Phil. 1:23). “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.”
5. When the World of God respecting the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work is so blasphemously distorted and denied, is it any wonder that Seventh Day Adventists also deny the doctrine of everlasting punishment? Mrs. White says that it is “opposed to the teaching of the Scriptures, to the dictates of reason, and to our feelings of humanity. “The theory of eternal punishment.” She continues “is one of the false doctrines that constitute the wine of the abominations of Rome…They received it from Rome, as they received the false Sabbath.” Will Mrs. White or any of her disciples, asks Wm. C. Irvine in his book “Heresies Exposed,” dare to set up “the feelings of humanity” against the plain word of the Living God.” “These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” “It is absolutely cruel,” writes Dr. A.A. Hodge, the renowned theologian, “to follow the example of the devil with Eve in persuading people that after all God may be more benevolent than the language of His Word implies” (Genesis 3:3-4)
“Seducing Spirits”
The views of Seventh Day Adventists are largely based on the “visions” which Mrs. White claimed she had from God. The following extract from “Wake up S.D.A.s,” by F.C. Payne, reveals clearly that her “visions” were from Satan as an angel of light (See 2 Corinthians 11:13-14). “Surely God has given us ample warnings in both the Old and New Testament against false prophets that would arise. Note the details of his warning in 1 Timothy 4:1-3; “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats.” It would be difficult to find a false prophet who fulfilled this prophecy more emphatically that Mrs. Ellen G. White. First she rose up in the latter times. For forty years she condemned all who preached salvation by faith alone. She outright discouraged marriage, and condemned bearing children (yet she had four). Listen to this inspired message: “I was shown that Brother and Sister…The missionaries had better set the people an example in these things that correspond with “our faith.” The time is and has been for years that the bringing of children into the world is more an occasion of grief than joy…Satan controls these children, and the Lord has but little to do with them.”
“Abstaining From Meats”
And to complete the fulfillment of this prophecy from 1 Timothy, “Commanding to abstain from meats,” Mrs. White was not content with interfering with God’s items of food, including “tea, coffee, flesh-meats, butter, spices, rich cakes, mince pies, cheese”…”Eggs should not be placed upon your table. They are an injury to your children.” She warned parents that God would not answer the prayers if they fed their children butter, eggs, or meat.”
The Ban On Eggs Lifted
In 1909, after 39 years, the ban on eggs was lifted, for she now gets a revelation that eggs are not only good food, but, quote, “Eggs contain properties that are remedial agencies in counteracting certain poisons” (“The Testimony of Jesus,” p. 64). Needless to say, medical science had this knowledge many years before that eggs were the preventive and cure for the great scourge of rickets in children. Thus their prophetess was responsible for the suffering or death of children contracting rickets between 1870 and 1909 whose parents obeyed the demon-directed instructions of their prophetess. I have already given Mrs. White’s own testimony that anything she wrote was given her by the Spirit of God. One thing is certain it was not from the Spirit of the God of heaven.
Enough has been written to show that Seventh Day Adventism is not of God but of the devil. Its doctrines are “doctrines of devils” and all who will not, renounce and forsake it will assuredly find themselves among those who will hear the dread sentence, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41) If you have been ensnared in this delusion act now on the exhortation given you by God in His word, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:16-17).
The Sabbath
The Fourth Commandment is an integral and permanent part of the Moral Law and is therefore universally binding upon all men as a rule of life and conduct as surely as the other commandments in the Decalogue. The Sabbath is not a temporary Jewish ordinance, as some falsely aver. Its institution pre-dates The Fall, and is “made for man” as the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath declares. The ceremonial law pertaining to the sacrifices and carnal ordinances of the Old Testament Church was typical and therefore temporary. It was not engraven in tables of stone. It was the law of the shadows of the things to come, and having been fulfilled in Christ it passed away.
But not so the Moral Law. The Ten Commandments engraven in tables of stone by the finger of God, as proof and evidence of their permanency, remain the unchanged and unchangeable divine rule of life and manners. The change of the day to the first day of the week did not in the least degree interfere with the spirit, the substance and complete authority of the Fourth Commandment—to keep one whole day in seven holy to the Lord. “The precepts of the Decalogue,” writes Dr. Hodge, “bind the Church in all ages; while the specific details contained in the book of Moses, designed to point out the way in which the duty they enjoyed was then to be performed, are no longer in force. The Fifth Commandment still binds children to obey their parents; but the Jewish law giving fathers the power of life and death over their children, is no longer in force. The Seventh Commandment forbids adultery, but the ordeal enjoined for the trail of a woman suspected of that crime is a thing of the past. The same principle applies to the interpretation of the Fourth Commandment. The command itself is still in force; the Mosaic laws respecting the mode of its observance have passed away with the economy to which they belonged. It is unjust therefore to represent the advocates of the continued obligation of the Fourth Commandment, as Judaizers. They are no more Judaizers than those who hold that the other precepts of the Decalogue are still in force.” (“Systematic Theology,” Part 3, p. 337).
The Sabbath Days of Colossians 2:16
Appeal is made to Colossians 2:16; “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days,” by those who deny the perpetual obligation of the Fourth Commandment. “Everyone knows,” writes Dr. Hodge, “that the apostolic churches were greatly troubled by Judaizers, who insisted that the Mosaic law continued in force, and that Christians were bound to conform to its prescriptions with regard to the distinction between clean and unclean meats, and its numerous feast days, on which all labor was to be intermitted. These were false teachers and this was the false doctrine against which so much of Paul’s epistles was directed. It has no ference to the weekly Sabbath, which had been observed from the Creation and which the apostles themselves introduced and perpetuated in the Christian Church.” (“Systematic Theology,” Part 3, p. 332).
The Believers’ Relationship to the Law
The view that the Fourth Commandment is no longer binding in New Testament times flows from an erroneous interpretation of the believers’ relationship to the law, as set forth in the texts as, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Believers are not under the law as a covenant of works to be thereby justified or condemned, but under the covenant of grace, and therefore “under the law of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21) as the Head and Mediator thereof, and they seek the grace of the covenant to give obedience to what Christ their Lord and Master requires of them, when He says, “If ye love Me, keep my commandments.” John Howe, the Puritan divine, expresses the Scriptural view held by the Church of God in all generations of the law. He saves us from the wrath of God, not from his government. (Galatians 3:13-14; Romans 8:3-4) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, in order that the promised Spirit might be given (Galatians 3:13-14) who should write the law in our hearts, fulfill the righteousness of it in us: regenerating us; begetting us after God’s image, and making us partakers of a God-like nature. So we through the law become dead to the malediction and curse of it, that we may live to God more devoted lives than ever.” “For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.” (1 John 5:3).
A Challenging Question
Did you ever meet with a lively believer,” asks the saintly Robert Murray McCheyne, “in any country under heaven—one who loved Christ and lived a holy life—who did not delight in keeping holy to God the entire Lord’s Day””
An Appeal
“My fellow traveler to eternity, it is commanded, when God says, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” He claims all the day as much as any part in it. To profane the morning or evening is as much rebellion against God as to profane the whole, and unless you religiously improve the day, you have no share in the blessings promised to those who improve not the morning nor the afternoon but who remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. As to making too much of this sacred day, do they who are in heaven think that this can be done? Do they who are lost in hell? Or will you when death and eternity are near? You do not complain that six days are too long for serving the world: you are contented all the week without the house of God, but not one day without the world. If you are not awefully blind to your own state, you must perceive this; and while you are a lover of the world, the love of God is not in you. If on e Sabbath is a burden to you what would an eternal Sabbath be? If you cannot be content for a few hours without the world, what happiness would you find even in heaven, where all is spiritual and devout? That you are indisposed for religious exercises is both your sin and your misery, and confirms the importance of a change in you, great as a second birth. They that are after the flesh, the Lord declares, do mind the things of the flesh: and this is your case while it is so you are a perishing sinner, and never can be happy, unless you become a new creature in Jesus Christ.
Improve your Sabbaths. Forsake not the regular assembling with the children of God; but keep in sight the day that fast approaches, the day when the guilt of broken Sabbaths must be answered for. But if your Sabbaths are improved, a day when the worship of earth shall be exchanged for the worship of heaven, the praises of time for those of eternity, a day of blessedness for you shall dawn that never more shall end.” (Rev. J.C. Pike).
“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day: and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” (Isaiah 58:13-14).
(William “Ergatees” Maclean)
Originally Posted by hells_unicorn
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