God’s Memorials

We shall find, if we investigate the subject of God’s memorials in his word, that there is always a peculiar fitness, a likeness, a similarity, between the memorial and the thing commemorated by it. This principle is illustrated by the creation Sabbath, the rest signifying a completed work; the rite of circumcision, a circle cut in the flesh, may signify the surrounding of Abraham’s seed with peculiar providences as his peculiar people. The feast of the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood bring forcibly to view the fleeing out of Egypt, and the act of the destroying angel in passing over the houses of the children of Israel, thus saving their first-born. The feast of tabernacles brings to view their dwelling in tents; the joyful sending of gifts at the feast of Purim shows the gladness felt at their escape from the malice of Haman. So of the Lord’s supper and baptism. Every Bible memorial is appropriate. But how about this man made memorial of Sunday-keeping? What fitness is there in keeping as a Sabbath one out of every seven days to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, as a part of the work of redemption, when it is yet incomplete? We have seen that the resurrection day was a busy one. The disciples hunted here and there to find Christ, two of them traveling fifteen miles on foot, and Jesus doing the same. It was a day of anxiety, for they did not believe he was risen until just as the day was closing. So there could have been no religious meeting or public speaking. What likeness is there between the day most Christians keep as a Sabbath, and the original day they propose to keep in memory by it? In order for it to be a fitting memorial, it should be true that the work of redemption occupied six days, and that Christ rested the day following something no person ever claimed. As baptism is a memorial of Christ’s resurrection, we would, in that case, have two memorials of the same event-a thing unprecedented in the Scriptures. We therefore conclude that the claim that Sunday is set apart to commemorate redemption, is absurd, and entirely contrary to the facts in the case.ChSa 60.1