I purchased an interesting book yesterday entitled, The Lord’s Day - A Theological Guide to the Christian Day of Worship, written by Paul K. Jewett who was a Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary when the book was published in 1971. From what I can gather in the early reading of this book, Jewett writes from a Reformed Theology perspective. He received his training at Wheaton College, Westminster Seminary (Philadelphia) and Harvard University (Ph.D.).
The summary on the back cover is as follows:
In this study the author acquaints the reader with the principal matters which bear upon the subject of the Christian day of worship. Following the order of redemptive history, he begins the discussion with a brief account of the Jewish Sabbath and proceeds to a consideration of the Lord’s Day, making Jesus’ view of the Sabbath a bridge between the two.
The Sabbath was originally given the Israelites by divine revelation through Moses. Perceiving that the Sabbath rest was fulfilled in Christ, early Jewish Christians were indifferent to the continued observance of the seventh day, being fortified in this attitude by Jesus’ own use of the Sabbath. Since this insight was illuminated by the event of the resurrection, early Christian indifference to the seventh day coincides with the observance of the first day in commemoration of the initial fellowship of the disciples with the risen Lord on the evening of Easter.
This investigation leads to a Lord’s Day theology of fulfillment in hope. The study concludes with four principles suggested as minimal guides to the keeping of the Lord’s Day.
What interested me about this book was a section on Seventh-day Adventism. While much of the criticism in former Adventist circles centers on the Sabbath, I was intrigued at the approach a Reformed theologian would take, knowing that he may be more in line with Sunday Sabbatarianism as outlined in the Westminster Confession of Faith. I will reproduce key portions of what Jewett concluded about Adventists below. His conclusions are largely not shared by members of the former Adventist community and indeed, there have been critics within our circles who have claimed that Reformed theology “sets people up” for Adventism and Saturday Sabbatarianism because of its high regard for God’s moral law. The conclusions from Jewett show that nothing could be further from the truth. It does not follow that a high regard for God’s moral law and the Decalogue ends with someone “falling” for Adventism, rather, it ends with the disagreement being over what the Sabbath law pointed to and in Whom this law found its fulfillment. We don’t need to tiptoe around the Decalogue or even abandon all talk of the law as being valuable for the Christian life as many former Adventists have done. We only need to follow the example of Professor Jewett in seeing the battle lines drawn at the person and work of Jesus Christ rather than in a particular commandment.
Here is what Jewett says in his section about Seventh-day Adventists:
Whereas the Reformers were indifferent to the observance of any particular day, there are those in the Christian church who regard the seventh-day Sabbath as perpetually obligatory. This is both the simplest and—as is often the case—the least plausible option, when submitted to the rigors of critical analysis. The seventh-day worshipper puts his finger on the fourth commandment and declares that everyone who worships on the first day is an apostate, though an ignorant and well-meaning one in most cases. To counter this Adventist accusation of apostasy with that of legalism, as is too often done, is to exorcise the Devil by Beelzebub. We cannot say that those who worship on the seventh day are legalists, having no part in the Christian church. A man may or may not be a legalist, whatever day he sets apart for divine worship.
At the obvious level, the problem with the seventh-day position is that it constitutes a truancy from the mainstream of Christian teaching and practice, for which there is no evidence or justification in the sources. The Seventh-Day Baptists and Adventists are telling other Christians that they are wrong in doing what Christians have always done. They are saying that the Christians worshipped on the seventh day and not on the first day; but, as we have seen, there is no convincing evidence that this is so.
At a deeper theological level, theirs is an error at the opposite extreme from that of the Reformers. The Sabbatarian position fails to do justice to the movement of redemptive history. It resolves the question of the day of worship as though the Sabbath rest were wholly a future hope, and does not see the implications of the fulfillment of that hope in Christ, who is our promised rest. It frames a theology of the day of worship as though nothing had happened in redemptive history since God spoke by Moses; it is as though Christ had never come.
Adventists, the primary spokesmen for this position, still cling to the shadow of things to come and do not reckon with the fact that “the body is Christ’s” (Col. 2:17). The thesis that the church should worship on the seventh day, therefore, cannot contribute in an essential way to our effort to frame a theology of the Christian day of worship. We shall simply offer a brief account of the history of seventh-day worship, that the reader may not be wholly uninformed of the heritage of his brethren who revere the seventh-day Sabbath, together with some animadversions on the Adventist approach to Sripture and Christian tradition.
[What follows is a brief history of the early seventh-day Sabbatarians and how their position was embraced by the early Adventists.]
In evaluating this position, we need not conjure up the specter of legalism. As we have said, one can no more infer one is under the law because he worships on the seventh day than that one is under grace because he worships on the first day. The problem is rather the uncritical nature of the arguments for seventh-day worship. Take, for example, the thesis that Daniel 7:25 refers to changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, or Ellen White’s interpretation of the book of Revelation: “...in the last days the sabbath test will be made plain. When this time comes anyone who does not keep the Sabbath will receive the mark of the beast and will be kept from heaven.” (The Great Controversy, p. 449). How can one interact critically with such arguments? One can only accept them without question or leave them, much as he would leave arguments for a flat earth.
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Not only are Adventist writers seemingly oblivious to scientific information about the age of the earth and the antiquity of man, but the manner in which they handle the testimony of history leads in like manner to a cul-de-sac. Every piece of evidence that Christians have worshipped on Sunday is either explained away or cited as evidence of apostasy. Thus it appears a priori certain that the voice of tradition can only support the Seventh-day Adventist position. Did the Reformers teach the observance of the first day of the week? Yes, of course, say the Adventists. And what a tragedy that they should have “stopped short in their work of reformation! One more tradition of the medieval church should have been rejected—the false sabbath” (cited from Richard B. Lewis, The Protestant Dilemma). “The Reformers failed to forsake this heresy along with transubstantiation, purgatory, Mariolatry, and other errors of Rome” (cited from Lewis). And it really matters not how primary the evidence for Sunday worship may be, in contrast to that for transubstantiation, purgatory, and Mariolatry. The great antiquity of such evidence simply proves to the Adventists that the apostasy of worshipping on the first day is much more ancient than the heresy of transubstantiation, purgatory or Mariolatry.
[What follows is an account from Lewis where he claims “Sunday has always been the day of heathen worship. It has always been dedicated to the sun god..."]
Thus to stigmatize the observance of Sunday by Christians as having its origin in pagan sun worship is perhaps “the most unkindest cut of all,” for it rests upon palpable historical inaccuracies. It is a well-known fact that from a hoary antiquity men have worshipped the sun, but at the commencement of the Christian era there was no particular association of this cult with the first day of the Jewish week. The day was not called “Sunday” when Christians began to worship on it; and the oft-repeated statements that the first Christians worshipped on “Sunday” really means that they worshipped on the day which subsequently came to be called Sunday, when the days of the week were named for the planets. This usage, the so-called Planet Week, is a post-Christian one.
To be sure, when the Planet Week was established, the day on which Christians worshipped was also devoted by pagans to the worship of the sun, particularly in the cult of Mithras, since the god Mithras was originally a Persian light god. Christians were then sometimes supposed themselves to be sun-worshippers by their pagan neighbors, because they worshiped on Sunday. (The apologist Tertullian is the first to mention this case of mistaken identity. -see footnote) But there is no reason why those who are themselves Christians should make the same mistake.
Footnote: W. Rordorf suggests that the Christian observance of Sunday may have influenced the Mithraitic practice. That is to say, the evidence points in the opposite direction of the Adventist claim.
Source: A Theology of the Lord’s Day, pp. 106-114
In summary, there are good historical and theological reasons to disagree with the Adventist claim that Saturday observance is an apostolic Christian practice. To minimize the law in an effort to prevent people from joining Adventism is to make a greater error than the Adventist who places undue weight on a single command. There is no need to be afraid of God’s law. As the Psalmist declares, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:7-9). And if we think this quote from the Psalms is merely an Old Testament sentiment, let us pay attention to the apostle Paul, who said, “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being” (Romans 7:22) and “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:31).
Greg
) specifically for God, friends and family out out of our busy lives here on earth. It wasnt until I discerned that core concept, that “spirit of the sabbath” if you will that I actually thought of it as blessing. Prior to that it was nothing but drudgery. As a child, I felt like I couldnt do anything, however during my college years, when I realized so much of the legalistic drudgery was unecessary, the core concept of having a day free from work, devoted exclusively to God and his gifts in my life (AKA my wonderful friends!) seemed very beautiful indeed. That is the only reason why I am still a sabbatarian today. A time to pause and look to God, though by no means the only time it should be done during the week. (another mistake some adventists have fallen into)
