3 Classes on the Sabbath

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: 

Exodus 20:10

"WITH respect to the Sabbath, the religious world may be divided into three classes: 

1. Those who retain the ancient seventh-day Sabbath. 

2. Those who observe the first-day Sabbath. 

3. Those who deny the existence of any Sabbath.

It is inevitable that controversy should exist between these parties. 

Their first appeal is to the Bible, and this should decide the case; for it reveals man’s whole duty. But there is an appeal by the second party, and sometimes by the third, to another authority, the early fathers of the church, for the decision of the question. 

The controversy stands thus: The second and third parties agree with the first that God did anciently require the observance of the seventh day; but both deny the doctrine of the first, that He still requires men to hallow that day; the second asserting that He has changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week; and the third declaring that He has totally abolished the institution itself. 

The first class plant themselves 

--upon the plain letter of the law of God, 

--and adduce those scriptures which teach the perpetuity and immutability of the moral law, 

--and which show that the new covenant does not abrogate that law, but puts it into the heart of every Christian. 

The second class attempt to prove the change of the Sabbath by quoting those texts which mention the first day of the week, and also those which are said to refer to it. The first day is, on such authority, called by this party the Christian Sabbath, and the fourth commandment is used by them to enforce this new Sabbath. 

The third class adduce those texts which assert the dissolution of the old covenant; and those which teach the abolition of the ceremonial law with all its distinction of days, as new moons, feast days, and annual sabbaths; and also those texts which declare that men cannot be justified by that law which condemns sin; and from all these contend that the law and the Sabbath are both abolished." 

J.N. Andrews