July 23, 1885
“Human Ignorance vs. Divine Knowledge” The Signs of the Times, 11, 28.
E. J. Waggoner
Last week, in the article entitled “The Sabbath in Eden,” we showed that Genesis 2:3 is an explicit declaration that the seventh day was sanctified immediately following God’s rest upon it at the close of creation, and that to sanctify means to set apart, to appoint; so that we have the inspired record that, in Eden, God decreed that men should observe the seventh day as the Sabbath. We cannot be so sure that George Washington commanded the American army during the war of the Revolution, as we are that in Eden God appointed the seventh day to be kept by all mankind. For the knowledge of that we are dependent on human evidence, while this fact is made known to us “by inspiration of God.”SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.1
But Dr. Dobbs says of Genesis 2:3:-SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.2
“To make the passage of any value as proof in this matter, it must be assumed that Genesis was an historic book, coming down from patriarchal times.”SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.3
It makes no difference when the book of Genesis was written, so far as this case is concerned. The Doctor might as well have said that we cannot know that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, because Moses was not there to see it done, and to make the record on the spot. The reader must remember that Genesis 2:3 is not the commandment for Sabbath observance, but is simply the inspired record that such a command and had been made. The patriarchs were not dependent on the record in Genesis, for their knowledge of the Sabbath, any more than the early colonists were dependent on “Ridpath’s History of the United States,” for their knowledge of the wars with the Indians or with Great Britain. We do need a history to inform us of that in which we are actors.SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.4
The lives of three men-Adam, Methuselah, and Shem-reach from the creation to Isaac. Methuselah was two hundred and forty-three years old when Adam died, Shem was ninety-seven years old when Methuselah died, and Isaac was fifty years old when Shem died. There certainly was opportunity enough for the patriarchs to know of the appointment of the Sabbath in Eden, even though no records were kept. Dr. Cunningham Geikie, in his “Hours with the Bible,” vol. 1, chap. 20, paragraph 9, speaking of the call of Abraham, says:-SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.5
“No details are given of the creed of Abraham, but, in addition to his confession of the one only living God, it must have included all that was true in the popular beliefs of Chaldea. This would imply his knowledge of the Sabbath; for the seventh day, by a tradition handed down from Eden, was ‘holy,’ in his Eastern native land, and was honored by the cessation of all work on it.”SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.6
Dr. Geikie says that even the heathen had at that time preserved the tradition of the Sabbath from Eden; but whether they did or not, it is beyond controversy that the patriarchs knew all about the sanctification of the Sabbath in Eden. But even if it were possible that they did not, their ignorance would not in the least affect the fact, for we have the word of the Lord for it, that the seventh-day Sabbath was set apart in Eden. Our relation to the Sabbath of the Lord must be regulated by his commandment concerning it, and not by somebody else’s knowledge or lack of knowledge, nor by the time its institution was recorded.SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.7
Again we quote from Dr. Dobbs:-SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.8
“Just here it may be well to state that the Jewish Talmud, so scholars tell us, knows nothing of any ante-Mosaic Sabbath. Their doctors universally date the Sabbath from the Mosaic institution, generally referring its commencement to Exodus 15:25: ‘There he made a statute,’ etc.”SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.9
We have never read the Talmud, so we, with Dr. Dobbs, must depend for a knowledge of its content, on what “scolars tell us.” Grant that the Talmud knows nothing of an Ante-Mosaic Sabbath, and what does it prove? Nothing. Whether the Talmud knows anything about the Sabbath either before or after Moses, or whether it does not, matters not one whit. The Bible knows all about it, and it tells us in unmistakable language. We desire our knowledge of our duty to God, not from the Talmud, but from the Bible. If one honest man bears witness on a given point, the fact that a dozen other men know nothing about it does not overthrow his evidence. In other words, one man’s knowledge of the fact, cannot be made of no effect by another one’s ignorance. If all the man-made books in the world ignored the Sabbath, or knew nothing about its institution, it would make no difference; God’s book remains unchanged.SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.10
But what of the statement that “their doctors universally date the Sabbath from the Mosaic legislation, generally referring its commencement to Exodus 15:25: ‘There he made a statute,’ etc.” The preceding paragraph answers this statement also. If it were true that “their doctors” referred the institution of the Sabbath to the time when the Israelites were at Marah, that would not make it true, when the inspired record plainly tells us that it was instituted at creation. It is not an unheard-of thing for “doctors” to be mistaken. We have known doctors to say, in the face of the statement in Genesis 2:3, that God never blessed the seventh day; and we were presumptuous enough to believe the Bible in preference to the doctors. Whatever the Talmud may or may not say concern an ante-Mosaic Sabbath, Josephus says:-SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.11
“Accordingly Moses says that in just six days the world and all that is therein was made; and that the seventh day was a rest, and a release from the labor of such operations;-whence it is that we celebrate a rest from our labors on that day, and call it the Sabbath.”-“Antiquities,” Book 1, chap.1, section 1.SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.12
It is a matter for curiosity, however a man who can see no proof whatever for Sabbath observance, in Genesis 2:3, which speaks directly on a point, can find in Exodus 15:25 evidence of its institution, when the latter text makes no hint of the Sabbath. But the human mind, when controlled by prejudice, is not subject to laws.SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.13
We have space in this article for just one more quotation:-SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.14
“It is worthy of remark also that no Christian ‘Fathers,’ among the writings which have come down to us from the first three centuries, ever based the observance of the Lord’s day [by this term the Doctor means Sunday] upon either the fourth commandment or a primeval and patriarchal Sabbath law.”SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.15
And it is worthy of remark that that indicates the good sense of the “Fathers,” more than anything which they did write. They did well not to base Sabbath observance upon the fourth commandment, nor upon any other commandment found in the Bible. It would be well if some of their successors in the Christian church would be as discreet. It is true that the “Fathers” did not base the observance of Sunday on the fourth commandment, but that need not hinder us from facing the observance of the seventh day, Saturday-the true Lord’s day-upon the commandment. The reader will notice that thus far all of Dr. Dobb’s argument against the Sabbath has been negative-consisting of what certain ones do not know about the Sabbath. In our next we shall examine what he claims to know about it. E. J. W.SITI July 23, 1885, page 441.16