(An article by the late Rev. E. Teaz, of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Liverpool, and reprinted in the magazine for April 1915)
In a recent issue of the British Weekly a correspondent proposes the question, “Why should the Lord’s day be called Sunday?” And Professor Smith of Magee College, Londonderry, undertakes to answer it. The answer which he furnishes must have proved not only a source of confusion to the inquirer, but also a source of pain to many a Christian reader. When the professor proceeds to defend the name “Sunday”, and to claim the authority of the Apostle Paul for doing so, he not only turns upon himself but also grossly misrepresents the apostle. The apostle was so careful lest he should countenance anything savouring of idolatry that, in case of meat that had been offered to idols, he declared, “If meat make by brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth”. How could he countenance the use of a name which “gave rise to the notion that Christianity was akin to the Persian sun-worship” and to which pagan associations clung? Such a supposition would be unreasonable. The apostle’s exhortation was: “Be not conformed to this world. Abstain from all appearance of evil.”
But when the Professor proceeds to affirm that the name “Sabbath” is “infinitely more objectionable than Sunday”, that “it is absolutely illegitimate”, and that “it is not only erroneous but mischievous”, it must be admitted that his language is very strong. In this respect it is in striking contrast to the arguments adduced in support of it. Before examining these arguments in detail it may not be out of place to quote the words of Dr. Hamilton, late President of Queen’s College, and Vice-Chancellor of the Queen’s University, Belfast. He has made a special study of this question. At page 85 of his book, “Our Rest Day”, he says “Let it be noted that we have a right to call the day ‘The Sabbath’. In doing so we follow the best example, that of Christ. The name is, besides, in itself a most beautiful and suggestive name. For Sabbath is rest, and Sabbath day, rest day.”
The first argument advanced in support of the above strong assertions is that “the Sabbath is the Jewish day of rest”. No doubt the Jews were commanded to remember it, to keep it holy — a fact which shows that it previously existed, and was no new enactment specially for them. But any child who has read three verses of the second chapter of Genesis, knows that the Sabbath was instituted thousands of years before the Jews were heard of. The Sabbath was nothing more Jewish in its origin than the Garden of Eden was Jewish.
The Professor’s second argument is that the Christian day of rest is never called “the Sabbath” in the New Testament. A careful study of some passages in the New Testament will show that this is not the case. In Matthew XXIV, where our Lord is warning His disciples of the horrors which would attend the destruction of Jerusalem — an event which took place some thirty years afterwards, and at a time when He knew they would be observing the first day of the week — exhorts them to pray that their flight might not be on “the Sabbath day”. Thus, as Dr. Hamilton says, we have His sanction for the use of the name. Again, it must be remembered that in those passages of the Gospels, which describe the resurrection of Christ as taking place on the “first day of the week”, the words, in the Greek, literally mean, “on the first of the Sabbaths”, that is, on the first of those Sabbaths which had been observed by the Christians from the time of the resurrection till the time at which the evangelists wrote; that is, for a period of not less than thirty years. Hence we gather that the Christian day of rest is called “the Sabbath” in the New Testament.
His third argument is based upon the statement that the Christian institution is but the Jewish institution “transfigured and changed with a fuller context and a nobler meaning”, and that the New Testament marks the difference by giving it a new name. For example, the Passover has become the Lord’s Supper. If this is so, why make an exception in the case of the Sabbath by giving it the old pagan name, Sunday? This is the more unjustifiable, since God has given us a new name for it — the Lord’s Day.
The Professor’s remarks on the divine name, Jehovah, are scarcely relevant to the subject on hand, but they express an assumption which used to be so often repeated by a certain school that perhaps some still regard it as a truth. We are given to understand that Jehovah was a mere national deity. He says, “The land of Israel was His domain, and banishment from thence meant exclusion from His presence”. And he quotes Psalm Lxxxvi, 8, in support of this statement. If he had quoted the next verse he would have learned that Jehovah is the God of all nations. I suppose when the Psalmist, as he realised the omnipotence of Jehovah, explains in Psalm Cxxxix, “whither shall I flee from thy presence?” — the Professor would have replied, “Oh, that is quite easy; just cross over the border to Moab”. Again, he tells us that “our Lord never spoke of Jehovah”. How does he know? Has everything that our Lord spoke been recorded? (See John XXI, 25). When our Lord stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth to read from the Book of the Prophet Esaias, we find (from Luke IV, 18) that He read from the sixty-first chapter. In the first verse of that chapter the name Jehovah occurs twice. Did He not use “Jehovah” or its substitute on that occasion? The Professor has reminded us that wherever we have “Lord” written in capitals in our version, “Jehovah” occurs in the Hebrew. The capitals will be found in the verse referred to. Perhaps the Professor has forgotten that the name “Sabbath”, which he characterises as “absolutely illegitimate, erroneous, and mischievous”, is just the very name which is endorsed by the Standards of his Church, and that he has publicly signed these Standards on at least two occasions — at his ordination and again at his appointment to the Chair of Theology. But perhaps these documents are only “a scrap of paper”.