How do we know that the day we now call the seventh is the same as the one that was observed as a rest day in Eden? Didn't it get lost somewhere along the line?
This question comes frequently to the personal worker, and although it may present no problem to the majority of us, it might help some if we discussed it again.
When God gave man 168 hours a week, and required him to devote 24 of those hours to worship, it was so that he (man) would remember his Creator, and he was to remember Him on the day God set aside for the purpose—not just any day of man's choosing.
John the Beloved states that he was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10). Now if there is a day called the Lord's day, it is evident that that day belongs to the Lord. But this verse does not tell us which day of the seven it is, and so we must find the day of which Jesus Christ is the Lord. In Matthew 12:8 we read. "For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day." The next point is to find which day of the seven is the Sabbath day. Exodus 20:10 clearly answers that question: "But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God."
Now the Sabbath and the existence of the week as a measure of time demands an explanation. We find that the length of the year is determined by the revolution of the earth around the sun; the month, by the cycle of the moon around the earth; and the day, by the rotation of the earth on its axis. Astronomy, however, can give no reason for the weekly cycle, as it does for the day, the month, and the year.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1 1 th ed., vol. 4, article on "Calendar," p. 988, tells us, "The week is a period of seven days, having no ref erence whatever to the celestial motions.—a circumstance to which it owes its unalterable uniformity. . . It has been employed from time immemorial in almost all eastern countries."
The weekly cycle cannot be explained by science or nature. It becomes then a purely arbitrary time division, and the only acceptable reason for its existence is found in the Genesis story of Creation. We find there is no other, for when one ignores the fact of Creation, then the seven-day week is dependent on the Sabbath for its very existence. Remove the Sabbath and every day is alike, and the week ceases to be. It was because the Creator, Christ Jesus, rested on the seventh day, after six days' work, that the day became His rest day, His Sabbath day.
Yet, despite all the facts, we still will find people who maintain that there is just no sure way of knowing which is the correct seventh day. They forget that the Jews of today, although scattered to the four corners of the earth, still hold to Saturday, the seventh day, as the true Sabbath of the fourth commandment. The Roman Catholic Church respects Friday, the sixth day, in commemoration of the crucifixion, and Sunday as the resurrection day. The vast majority of Protestant churches agree with the Catholic Church in that they too respect Sunday as the day on which Christ arose. We thus have the testimony of these large religious bodies composed of millions of worshipers testifying to the fact that Christ was crucified on the day we now call Friday and that He arose from the dead on Sunday. And Luke tells us that the day between the crucifixion day and the resurrection day is the Sabbath (Luke 23:54-56). If Friday and Sunday have remained throughout the years as they were, surely the day between stands also. If there were to be a change in the days of the week or in the law, mankind would need to be notified—and that by an authoritative divine decree—but we find no record of such a change.
A change in the calendar was made—from the Julian tAy the Gregorian—but it did not disturb the days of the week. In the year 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decreed a change. We find that ten days were dropped from the number of the days in the month of October. In 1752, by act of the English Parliament, eleven days were dropped out of September. Thus the change was made from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. We have found that since then practically all the world has made the change and all the world preserves the weekly cycle. By a look at the calendar for these months—October, 1582, and September, 1752—it can easily be noted that the seven-day week arrangement was not changed. The Bible Sabbath is still the seventh day—Saturday—of the calendar week. The calendar and the Bible agree.
Astronomers, who are men of authority in all matters of time reckoning, agree as to the antiquity of an unaltered succession of days in the week. Anders Donner, former professor of astronomy at the University of Helsingfors, in The Report on the Reform of the Calendar, page 61, states: "The week . . . has been followed for thousands of years and therefore has been hallowed by immemorial use."
"It was to keep this truth [God as Creatorj ever before the minds of men, that God instituted the Sabbath in Eden; and so long as the fact that He is our Creator continued to be a reason why we should worship Him, so long the Sabbath will continue as its sign and memorial. . . . The message which commands men to worship God and keep His commandments, will especially call upon them to keep the fourth commandment."—The Great Controversy, p. 438.
