Thursday, October 6, 2022

Roots of the Man of Sin and his Counterfeit Sabbath

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed... 2 Thessalonians 2:3

"....the frank testimony of Dr. Neander, the distinguished historian of the churchn his "History of the Christian Religion and Church," page 168, he thus remarks:  "Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday, very early, indeed, into the place of the Sabbath. . . . The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was
always only a
human ordinance; and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect-far from them; and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century, a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men
appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin." 
 
The apostle Paul informed the Thessalonian church that the mystery of iniquity had already begun to work, and that in the predicted period, the man of sin would be revealed. 
As the great apostasy had begun to develop itself in the days of the apostles, it follows that the early observance of any precept, or belief of any doctrine does not stamp it as apostolic or divine, if it have no foundation in the word of God. To us, therefore, it is a matter of peculiar interest to trace the gradual corruption of the truths of the Bible, even from the days of the apostles, down to the complete development of the man of sin. J.N. Andrews