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Has the original Bible Sabbath been lost?

by Wes Guy

by Wes Guy

Title   The Sabbath  

Theme    Has the original Bible Sabbath been lost?

Scripture Reading:   Exodus 20:8

Introduction

When the claims of the Bible Sabbath are presented today, one of the commonest objections is : "But who knows which day is the Sabbath? The original Sabbath is lost!"

In support of this claim it is argued that thousands of years have passed since early Bible times and, amid all the migrations; wars, revolutions, and changes of custom and calendar, the original order of the days of the week has become hopelessly jumbled up. So the claim is repeated ; "Nobody knows which day is the Sabbath, it might be Wednesday for all we know!"

What force is there in this objection? Has the original Sabbath become irretrievably lost? Has civilised man as a whole become confused about the true order of the days of the week? Have changes in the calendar caused the Sabbath of Creation to disappear into the mists of antiquity?

The answer is a resounding "No!" Indeed, no legacy from antiquity is more completely intact than the seven-day week. On no single fact of past or current history can we be more certain than the true order of the days of the week!   Scientists, astronomers, historians and churchmen unite to testify that this is so. Three lines of carefully-winnowed, easily-verifiable evidence combine to buttress this assurance. These are:

• The Bible
• The History of the calendar
• The science of Astronomy

There are three significant check-points at which we can establish, infallibly, the original order of the days of the week, and the true position of the Seventh day.

Check point no. 1

The Giving of the Manna

Exodus 16:4,5

From Creation, when God set apart the seventh day as the weekly Sabbath, the early patriarchs kept careful count of days, months, and years (e.g. see the record of Noah and the Flood, Genesis 7:11,12,24 ; 8:4,5). Yet, if men became confused or careless, God would not forget, and in the days of Moses, He removed all grounds for confusion or doubt by performing a dramatic, public, and long-continued miracle. This was the consistent, three-fold pattern in which the manna was given, over an incredible span of forty years!

First, a double portion of manna fell on the sixth day. Second, no manna fell on the seventh day. Third, the second portion of manna, left over from the sixth day, kept fresh and sweet during the Sabbath.

It is significant that neither Moses nor his companions were left to figure out for themselves which day was the Sabbath. God Himself indicated, infallibly and unmistakably, the true seventh day, by a spectacular, three fold miracle, repeated over 2000 times during a period of four decades.

The most confirmed sceptic could hardly ask for a more convincing or final demonstration than that!

Check point no.2

The practice of Christ and His Disciples

Luke 4:16;  24:54-56

In the interval between the giving of the manna and the time of Christ, the Jewish people used a series of remarkable calendars, and kept careful records. Yet again, though men might lose track of days, God did not become confused.

Jesus' Sabbath keeping custom ( see the words "as His custom was" in Luke 4:16)   proves conclusively that the Jews had not lost the true seventh day up to His time, for He kept the day then being observed by the Jews as the Sabbath. His disciples, also, honoured the Seventh-day, as then observed as "the Sabbath according to the commandment (Luke 23:56)

If the Jews had been at fault in their reckoning of the Sabbath, we may be sure that Jesus would have corrected them.

Accordingly, at this second Check-point, the true position of the seventh day was not left in a fog of uncertainty. For a period of thirty years it was unmistakably indicated again - not by a public weekly miracle like the giving of the manna - but by the weekly practice of the "Lord of the Sabbath Himself! (Mark 2:27,28)

Check  point no. 3

The modern observance of Easter

In the 2000-year interval between Christ's day and ours, it would have been impossible for the true seventh day to have been lost, for some very significant reasons.

The world-wide, modern observance of Easter, which commemorates Christ's Crucifixion on Good Friday; His rest in the tomb on Easter Saturday, and His resurrection on Easter Sunday. This observance is a public, irrefutable witness to the fact that the true seventh day has not been lost at any time during the Christian Age,

Three further evidences supplement the testimony of Easter.

• Three remarkably-harmonious calendars have been in operation side-by-side for most of the Christian era. These are the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mohammedan calendars. Though they differ in some respects, they all agree about the order of the days of the week. Saturday, for them all, corresponds with the seventh day!
• No calendar-change has altered the normal free-running order of the days of the week. For example, the sole change of the calendar in the Christian era, from the "Old Style" (Julian) to the "New Style" (Gregorian) - adopted in parts of Europe in 1582, and in England in 1752 - made a long-needed adjustment by dropping several calendar dates from one month. However, the adjustment affected the dates of the month, not the days of the week. One month was shortened, but there was no interference whatsoever with either the order or the names of the days of the week.
• Finally, to remove the last lingering shadow of a doubt, the Science of Astronomy adds its authoritative verdict. If a modern astronomer were to be confined to six months in an underground cavern, without clocks, or calendars, or instruments of any kind, so that he lost all count of days, a few hours back in his observatory would enable him to tell precisely what day of the week it was! Drawing on his past knowledge of the heavens, though without any reference to printed calendars, he could relocate himself in time solely by checking the position and movement of the heavenly bodies.

Conclusion

One person, living in isolation without a calendar - whether Jew, Moslem or Christian - might conceivably lose track of a day, or several days, and thus become confused about which day of the week it was. However, immediately he renewed contact with relatives and friends, they would quickly point out his error and put him right. Individuals, communities and nations keep an automatic check on each other in this matter of time-determination, so that the losing of the seventh day or any other day of the week, on a universal basis, is a sheer impossibility!

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