In article 2-10, I provided many quotes from Catholic scholars who all unanimously affirmed that nowhere in the Bible can one find a teaching substantiating the transfer of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.
Well, how about the Protestant world?
Well, hold onto your horses Bucko because…
…in this post, I’m gonna provide some insightful quotes from the world of Protestant scholarship and then I’m going to close this series of articles on the Sabbath.
Truthfully, I could go on and on, but I’ve got to move on and there is more than enough ammunition here to refute most false teachings the modern church promotes.
However, rest assured this isn’t the last time we will discuss this Sabbath issue.
When we get into the Book of Exodus and start discussing the 10 commandments, no doubt this topic will come up again.
Well, here goes.
Every one of these quotes is pure dynamite that will explode the false notion that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday.
‘There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday…into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters…The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday.’-Canon Eyton in The Ten Commandments , pp. 52, 63, 65
‘Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history…But what a pity it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!’-Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, in a paper read before a New York ministers’ conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner , Nov.16, 1893
‘There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance.’-William Owen Carver in The Lord’s Day in Our Day , p. 49
‘…it is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath…(the) Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday… There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday .’-Dr. R. W. Dale in The Ten Commandments (New York: Eaton &Mains), p. 127-129
‘…the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath .’-Timothy Dwight in Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Ser. 107, vol. 3, p. 258
“‘But,’ say some, ‘it was changed from the seventh to the first day.’ Where? When? And by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed! It is all old wives’ fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio—I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.’-Alexander Campbell in The Christian Baptist , Feb. 2, 1824, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 164,
‘The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change.-First Day Observance , pp. 17, 19
‘The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.’-Dr. Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church Henr y (1843), p. 186
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…These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect.-John Theodore Mueller in Sabbath or Sunday , pp. 15, 16
‘But, the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, he [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken…Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages; as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other.’-John Wesley in The Works of the Rev. John Wesley , John Emory, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25, vol. 1, p. 221,
‘Take the matter of Sunday. There are indications in the New Testament as to how the church came to keep the first day of the week as its day of worship, but there is no passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day.’-Harris Franklin Rall in the Christian Advocate , July 2, 1942, p.26
‘The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word ‘remember,’ showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai . How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?’-Dwight L. Moody in Weighed and Wanting (Fleming H. Revell Co.: New York), pp. 47, 48
‘The Sabbath is a part of the decalogue—the Ten Commandments. This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution…Until, therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand…The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath.’-T. C. Blake, D.D., in Theology Condensed , pp. 474, 475
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