Era of Spiritual Darkness
43
Sabbath with the most rigorous exactions, making its observance a
burden. Now, taking advantage of the false light in which he had thus
caused it to be regarded, he cast contempt upon it as a Jewish institu-
tion. While Christians generally continued to observe the Sunday as a
joyous festival, he led them, in order to show their hatred of Judaism,
[53]
to make the Sabbath a fast, a day of sadness and gloom.
In the early part of the fourth century the emperor Constantine
issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman
Empire. (See Appendix.) The day of the sun was reverenced by his
pagan subjects and was honored by Christians; it was the emperor’s
policy to unite the conflicting interests of heathenism and Christianity.
He was urged to do this by the bishops of the church, who, inspired
by ambition and thirst for power, perceived that if the same day was
observed by both Christians and heathen, it would promote the nominal
acceptance of Christianity by pagans and thus advance the power and
glory of the church. But while many God-fearing Christians were
gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness,
they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it
in obedience to the fourth commandment.
The archdeceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved
to gather the Christian world under his banner and to exercise his
power through his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the
representative of Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious
prelates, and world-loving churchmen he accomplished his purpose.
Vast councils were held from time to time, in which the dignitaries
of the church were convened from all the world. In nearly every
council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a
little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted. Thus the
pagan festival came finally to be honored as a divine institution, while
the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, and its observers
were declared to be accursed.
The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself “above all that
is called God, or that is worshiped.”
2 Thessalonians 2:4
. He had dared
to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all
mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God
is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby
[54]
distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work
of creation that the seventh day was sanctified as a rest day for man.