1897 254 It is hardly a matter of surprise (though always of sorrow to the devout mind), in this day of general rebellion against divine authority, to meet with attempts to abrogate the special claims of the first day of the week, and even to find those attempts made upon grounds alleged to be scriptural. Of such a character is the tract named below.*
{*"He mia ton Sabbaton" (What is it?). By C.W. Printed in Melbourne, Australia.}
The author seeks to show that there is no more authority for observing the first than any other day of the week. He rightly repudiates the first day being in any sense the sabbath; but he nevertheless falls into an exceedingly grave error in the opposite direction. He considers one day out of seven a far too insignificant proportion for the Lord. With a show of zealous ultra-spirituality, he declares he will not be satisfied unless every one of the seven be counted a Lord's day. This contention, as another has remarked, results in the very impotent conclusion that not one of the seven becomes a Lord's day. Instead of levelling up the six days to the first, the first is levelled down to the six; and the Lord is robbed of that to which He has set His name.
The aim of the tract therefore is decidedly mischievous, inasmuch as it tends to destroy the character of what is due to Christ from His saints. And it is the consideration of this fact that has induced us to notice it. It is no question of balancing proofs for the validity of certain human opinions, but whether it is written that the first of the week is appropriated by the Lord Jesus in a special way or not. And if He has, in any manner that has seemed good to Him, reserved this day unto Himself, we are undeniably under the most sacred obligation to respect that claim.
And before penning any of the remarks that may follow, we desire to make it clear to our readers that they are not the outcome of controversy between two persons of different persuasions. Half the circumference of the globe lies between us. Who C.W. may be, whether he is alive, and whether he will see these lines, are questions that the present writer cannot answer; nor do they affect the subject at the head of this paper. The point at issue is not C.W. but C.W.'s tract. We hope therefore that anything that may be said against his notion may not be construed as an uncharitable remark against C.W. His arguments are only referred to because they may he used by some, and may, possibly, be difficulties to others.
To proceed to the consideration of the subject. It will be found that the first day of the week is as characteristic of Christianity as the sabbath was of Judaism; so that this is no case of making "trifles seem the marrow of salvation." The day selected in each of the two instances stands as one of the strong points of distinction, nay, of contrast, between the systems of law and of grace. Their relative positions in regard to the other days of the week are highly significant of this diversity of character.
In the Mosaic economy, the day of rest was made to succeed the six days of toil. Jehovah in promulgating the law on Mount Sinai commanded, "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy, six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it" (Ex. 20:8-11).
It is not overlooked that there are earlier references to a hebdomadal division of time, and also to the seventh day as the sabbath. But only when incorporated with the "ten words," did it possess the nature of a legal obligation, so that to break the sabbath, by gathering sticks, for instance, was punishable by death. It was the sabbath of Jehovah Elohim, and it was to be hallowed to His worship and service.
It was to be a sabbath of rest to them. While it is true that its holy character was enforced by divine authority, it remains that its peculiar feature was that it was a day of rest. In contrast with their labours of the six days, they were to do no manner of work on the seventh.
Now if one word more than another is characteristic of the ancient economy, it is the word, "Do." "The man that doeth these things shall live in them." It was therefore the man that laboured for six days that rested the seventh. Had he for six days loved the Lord his God with his whole being, and his neighbour as himself, he could then, in a worthy manner, remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. But alas! in this as in every other commandment Israel failed. They estranged their hearts from Jehovah. They did their own pleasure on His holy day, and thus profaned His sabbaths. So that we find throughout the prophets that the Lord brings a continual charge against His people for breaking His sabbaths. They proved themselves unable to discharge their responsibility Godward in the due observance of this day. Being unholy for six days, it became impossible to keep holy the seventh.
But beside being an integral part of the system inaugurated at Mount Sinai, which resulted, not in man's blessing and salvation, but in making his offence to abound (Rom. 5:20), the sabbath is specifically declared to be a particular sign of God's covenant with His people. It became a broad distinctive mark between them and every other nation. Other nations might, in varying degrees, recognize the great moral landmarks of abstinence from murder and lust, etc., as specified on the tables of stone. But the sabbath was an abiding sign that Jehovah had separated that people unto Himself; other nations not observing it as it was laid upon them to do. Hence Jehovah says to the sons of Israel, without at all mentioning the other nine commandments, "Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am Jehovah that doth sanctify you." It was to be a perpetual covenant, a sign for ever (Ex. 31:12-17). This sign-character of the sabbaths is long after referred to by Ezekiel the priest when Israel is charged with polluting them, and thus walking in the ways of the nations (Ezek. 20:12-13).
Without giving further proofs, as might easily be done, it will surely be allowed that the sabbath was one of the distinctive features of the Jewish religion, as indeed it will be in a future day when Israel is restored (Ezek. 45:17; Ezek. 46:3). In like manner we hope to show that the first of the week is characteristic of Christianity.
1897 270 In the preceding paper it was shown that the sabbath was made a characteristic feature of the legal system established at Sinai. It is not thereby implied that it was then first instituted; for scripture is explicit that the seventh day was sanctified by God from the creation, being the day on which He rested from all His work which He had made (Gen. 2:1-3).
Traces of a division of time into periods of seven days appear in the history of the deluge (Gen. 7:4, 10; Gen. 8:10, 12). These are sufficient to indicate that the knowledge of the seventh day was handed down from the beginning. So we also find that in Ex. 16, before the promulgation of the law, Jehovah marked the seventh day from the others, in that no manna descended on that day, a double quantity being given on the sixth. The seventh day was to be the rest of the holy sabbath, and every man was to abide in his place.
The day is there regarded as a known institution, not then sanctified for the first time. And in its character as a day of rest which is specially insisted on (Ex. 16), it corresponds with that which distinguished the seventh day historically at the first (Gen. 2), and which indeed is ever its inseparable character, as doctrinally stated in Hebrews 4.
But we find in Exodus 16 that this day, so carefully guarded by Jehovah, was dishonoured by some of the people, who, ignoring the word of the Lord, went out as usual to gather manna. Consequently, the observance of the sabbath was immediately afterwards embodied in the ten words of the law, and fenced about with its curse upon the breaker. It became also, as we have already seen, the sign of the covenant relationship of the people of Israel with God (Ex. 31:13). That which was connected in its origin with a sinless creation was subsequently made the mark of God's earthly people, though as a matter of fact they never entered into His rest (Ps. 95:11; Heb. 4:3). The reason they did not enter in was their sin of unbelief and hardness of heart. For where sin and its effects are, there can be no sabbath.
Therefore it is not till the Lord Jesus, as Jehovah's Anointed one, undertakes the judgment and extirpation of sin from the world that the sabbath in its essential character will be kept. Then in the millennium, the land of Israel shall enjoy her sabbaths, as saith the prophet.
Let it therefore be allowed that the sabbath is connected by way of distinction with God's earthly people. We will now examine the New Testament with a view of learning in what light the first of the week and the sabbath are to be regarded.
The point of our enquiry then is to be whether or not the first of the week is brought into special prominence by the facts and teaching given by Christ and His apostles. We at once find that it is so distinguished by a fact of transcendent import, inasmuch as upon the first of the week the Lord Jesus rose from the dead,
When we reflect ever so slightly upon the immense significance of the resurrection of Christ, we shall be driven to conclude that the great importance of the event must stamp a character upon the day by which it becomes unique. The Lord's resurrection is by the apostle (1 Cor. 15) made the chief basis on which he rests his comprehensive arguments in demonstration, not alone of the truth of resurrection generally, but also of our present deliverance from sins. "If Christ be not raised," the apostle says to the Corinthian saints, "your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17).
It was plainly the very substratum on which the edifice of the Christian faith was reared. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the prominent feature of the preaching of the apostles as narrated in the Acts. Nor is it difficult to see why it should be so. For was it not the great act by which the accomplishment of the work of the atonement was divinely attested? He Who was "crucified through weakness" yet liveth by the power of God (2 Cor. 13:4). He Who was delivered for our offences was raised again for our justification (Rom. 4:25). It spake aloud therefore to the believer as the guarantee of all that is given him in the gospel. Nor was its voice less distinct to the unbeliever, being the assurance that God gives unto all that He will judge the habitable world by the Man, Christ Jesus (Acts 17:31).
Besides, this day of supreme eventfulness was, in point of fact, the inauguration of a new era. The Jews ate their passover and observed their sabbath with the greater unctuousness as they remembered that the body of Jesus of Nazareth was lying in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathrea, watched by a guard of Roman soldiers. Resurrection was furthest from their expectations. So it seems to have been from those of the disciples even. It was indeed so far removed from their hopes as godly Jews that the One Whom they believed to be the Messiah of Israel should terminate His earthly career in disaster and apparent failure, that they appear to have abandoned themselves to despair. Two of them we know had such little faith in the resurrection that they were going to Emmaus in an utterly forlorn and downcast mood, even after they heard from certain women that they had seen a vision of angels, who told them Jesus was alive (Luke 24:23).
But when they lifted up their eyes at the breaking of the bread, and beheld the Risen Jesus in the Stranger Who had drawn out their hearts till they burned within them, they became like new men. Their heaviness and sorrow vanished. They immediately retraced their steps to Jerusalem in exuberant joy.
These two men do but form in themselves an illustration of what is grandly true in a universal aspect. The resurrection changed entirely the colour of man's history. It stands between the guilt of man and the grace of God. It is the terminus ad quem of the record of man's hostility against God, culminating as it does in the highest pinnacle of human enormity — the crucifixion of Christ; and, on the other hand, it is the terminus a quo of the magnificent outflow of divine grace and righteousness to the guilty Jew and debased Gentile alike.
Now it was on the first of the week that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus took place. Has this fact no significance? Apparently none whatever in the eyes of C.W.; for we cannot discover a single reference to the event in his tract. And yet we might well ask ourselves, If the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was worthy of being memorialized throughout all their generations, how much more the day of the Lord's resurrection
But we also learn that He not only rose from the dead but that most of His recorded appearances to His disciples took place on that day of the week. First, the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9); then to her again with the other Mary (Matt. 28:1, 9); to Cleopas and his companion on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:15); to Peter alone (Luke 24:34); to the disciples gathered together (John 20:19). These all learned on the first of the week the joyful news of the Master's resurrection. Individually and collectively, the fact was, on that day, impressed upon them with all its gladsome associations.
It was also when the disciples were gathered together on that memorable day that the Lord, appearing in their midst, breathed upon them and imparted the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of life. This was a direct consequence of His own resurrection and a fulfilment of His promise that they should have life more abundantly (John 10:10).
Moreover, He then commissioned them as His earthly representatives: "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:23). The Lord did not wait until the day of His ascension to do this; but duly installed them thus on the first of the week.
But C.W. might say, "Yes, but all this happened on the actual day on which the Lord rose. What reference or application has it to every first day of the week?" In reply we point to the verses that succeed those just referred to in John 20.
Thomas Didymus was not present when Jesus first came. And we find that on the succeeding first of the week (the seventh, or sabbath, day is passed over in silence) the disciples are similarly gathered together, Thomas now being with them, stubborn in his refusal to believe until he saw for himself. The other disciples had told him, apparently at once (John 20:25); but Thomas remained a whole week in unbelief until he was privileged to see the Lord.
But on the first, again they are together and Thomas with them. Does it not show they expected to see the Lord on that day? Else why were they together as before and Thomas as well? Nor were they disappointed: the Lord appeared, and Thomas believed.
From this we gather two important facts. (1) The disciples had reason to believe that the Lord would appear on the second "first of the week" as He had done on the first; hence they gathered together with Thomas. (2) This was not mere imagination on the part of the disciples, for the Lord honours their expectations and appears among them, thus sanctioning by His own presence the prominence they gave to this day.
1897 302 It has already been noted that the first of the week received special distinction in New Testament times through being the day upon which the Lord Jesus rose in triumph from the grave and appeared to His own. Further, it was observed that this distinction is the more strongly marked, in that the Lord appeared again to the assembly of His disciples who gathered together with that expectation, not on the succeeding sabbath, but on the first of the week, the octave of His former appearance.
We now come to the consideration of a third event which, by its occurrence on the first of the week, adds its weighty testimony in confirmation of the special claims that day has upon those who believe in the Lord Jesus. We refer to the event recorded in Acts 2 , viz., the descent of the Holy Spirit.
The abiding presence of the Comforter with the disciples of the Lord on earth during His absence on high was the reiterated promise of Christ before He took His departure. His valedictory words (John 13 — 16) make abundant reference to the coming of the Paraclete. The Promised One was to be to them what the Lord had been, and a great deal more. So much so, in fact, that the Lord said to those whose hearts were filled with sorrow because He was leaving them, "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you" (John 16:7).
Thus it cannot be concealed that the Lord laid the utmost stress upon the fact that the Spirit was about to be with them to abide on earth during His absence above. It was just such an assurance as this that those distressed ones needed. They were feeling what an utter blank the world would be without Christ. They had learned to love Him. They had learned, too, to depend entirely upon the resources that were in Him. Moreover they had found in the discipleship of Christ an ample compensation for what came upon them through enduring the scorn of the world as well as through resisting its blandishments. But how could they go forward in face of trial and persecution when their Master was gone?
The Lord provides for this real need of theirs by the promise that One should take His place, not less in power than Himself, to preserve them from every foe and to maintain their souls in continued enjoyments through faith, of their privileges. "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth" (John 14:16-17). Thus while the Lord was preparing a place for them in the Father's house, the saints on earth should have the uninterrupted presence of the Holy Ghost with them and in them.
Hence the Lord's provision for them contemplates the defined period between His own ascension and His personal return for the purpose of receiving unto Himself His own, that He may conduct them into the place He has made ready for them where they are to be with Him for ever. He first announces (John 14) what is His purpose in going away, and then He tells them Who would be along with them as the Great Helmsman to pilot their little bark safely across the tempestuous seas into the desired haven.
But the teaching of scripture is clear enough that the present office of the gracious Spirit of God is not solely to be the guide of the church through the world which is now but a wilderness because of the absence of the Bridegroom. His operations in and among the saints are manifold. There is not one function of the spiritual life which the ever-present Spirit of God does not make effectual by the co-operation of His own omniscient omnipotence. Does some distressed soul feel overpowered by the sense of its many infirmities? At once comes the gracious assurance, "The Spirit also helpeth (or, joineth help to) our infirmities." Is there a sense of powerlessness to duly express the needs of the soul in prayer to God? "The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered." Does one lament its utter impotence to comprehend the word of God We have received the Spirit of God, that "we may know the things that are freely given to us of God" (1 Cor. 2:12).
So we might go on. The blessed Spirit of God is here dwelling in the church and in the believer as in a domicile, and His effectuating energy permeates every spiritual action, that rises acceptably to God. Will any therefore dispute that the Spirit of God is new on earth in a sense that He was not either in the times of the Old Testament or in the time of the Gospels? The fact is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is one of the chief distinguishing features of Christianity.
And if we ask ourselves as to the date of the advent of the Spirit, what do we learn from Acts 2? We find it was upon the day of Pentecost. This was upon the seventh octave of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and it therefore occurred on the first of the week.
This date is fixed by the law of the feasts of Jehovah, as laid down of old. The people were instructed to count from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that "ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering" (beyond doubt fulfilled by the Lord's resurrection on the first of the week), "seven sabbaths shall be complete; even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat-offering unto Jehovah" (Lev. 23:15-16). This makes it clear that the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) was the morrow after the seventh sabbath, or, in other words, the first of the week.*
{*C.W. objects feebly; but we hope to consider his remarks when we have pointed out the broad foundations of the subject.}
Here then, we are brought face to face with the fact that the great initiatory act of Christianity took place on the day of the week so many would slight. As the antitype of the Wave-Sheaf was found in the resurrection of Christ, so that of the two wave-loaves, "baken with leaven," was found in the church, the body of Christ, which was first formed by the baptism of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost (1 Cor. 12:13). What fitter day of the week than the first to inaugurate a new testimony for God in the earth!
But the question now arises, whether any custom of the apostolic churches in specially honouring this day is given us or not. We find that the inspired historian, in the course of his narrative of the labours and travels of the apostle Paul, shows us in a casual way (which makes the evidence not the less but the more powerful), that the early Christians were in the habit of assembling on that particular day of the week to commemorate the Lord's death in the appointed manner.
The apostolic company came to Troas after a tedious voyage of five days (compare Acts 16:11-12; Acts 20:6). Here they remained seven days for the purpose, as we believe, of breaking bread upon the ensuing first day of the week. "Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples (or, "we," which is acknowledged to be the better reading) came together to break bread" (Acts 20:7).
We say no more upon this now than to point out that we here possess an authoritative instance of the practice in apostolic days of eating the Lord's supper, not on the sabbath, but on the first of the week.
But we have a second testimony of a somewhat similar nature, which confirms the first. In his exhortation to the Corinthian saints concerning the collection to be made in Gentile assemblies for the poor saints in Jerusalem, the apostle writes, "Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come" (1 Cor. 16:2).
Even if we do not translate (as the sense is) "Every first of a week," the call of the apostle is without force if there was no recognition in the Corinthian assembly of the first of the week as invested with associations and claims upon the saints that no other day of the week had. Evidently there were memories and customs connected with that day which ought to move them to bestow some of their goods for the benefit of their poorer brethren and sisters at Jerusalem. If the passage means, as it undoubtedly does, that the reservation of a certain portion of their money was to be dale individually at home, certainly it is also implied that, when they came together on that day to break bread, their several offerings should be thrown into one common fund.
But our point is that these two scriptures establish that on this particular day of the week,
1. The saints assembled to break bread, and
2. Contributions were then made for the poor.
One other scripture, however, must also be referred to, viz. Rev. 1:10: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day." This phrase is of singular occurrence in the New Testament. The construction of the words in the original is such as to forbid its being confounded with the more frequent phrase, "the day of the Lord." This is the coming time indicated by prophecy as that when the kingdom of the Lord shall be established in the earth.
But "the Lord's day" is quite different; verbally it is connected with "the Lord's supper" (1 Cor. 11:20). In each case the effect of the epithet is to raise out of the common level. The saints in Corinth were in danger of reducing the breaking of bread to the level of "their own" supper, or an ordinary meal. The apostle Paul solemnly reminds them it was the Lord's supper. It was sacred to Him.
There is one day the apostle John distinguishes above the other six as the Lord's day. Which of the seven is it? Was it not on the first of the week that he saw the Lord (on two occasions at least) after His resurrection? Can there be any room for doubt that it was on the same day of the week that John in Patmos heard behind him a great voice, and turned to see One like unto the Son of Man. It was not only "the first of the week;" it was also "the Lord's day."
Now if the former term speaks to us of resurrection and grace and the new order of things of which Christianity consists, the latter speaks of the authority of Christ Himself. It is the day pertaining to Him; and such a thought is surely sufficient for every right-minded Christian. Is the believer looking for a positive injunction? Let him know it is not a question of law but of grace; not of what was established in Eden and confirmed at Sinai, but of what the Lord introduced at His resurrection, giving also indications of its connection with the heavenly people who are called out for Himself. By these indications, which have already been referred to, there is surely no difficulty in discerning what the mind and will of the Lord is.
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Notice.
The Future of Europe; Politically and Religiously in the light of Holy Scripture,
by Alfred H. Burton. London: S. W. Partridge & Co. 6d.
The author needs no apology. The hour calls for such testimony; for thousands who should sound the trumpet are only lulling souls asleep. There are sober and plain truths set out as to Babylon and the Beast, whereon many believers have indefinite thoughts. We therefore commend it as good and useful.