On What Day of the Week did Christ Arise from the Dead?
BEFORE we dissent from the generally-received opinion upon any question, the aspect which that question presents must in some way be explained; how the views which prevail have come to be so generally received, must be accounted for; and only the most direct evidence can afford ground for dissent. On the question of Sunday-keeping, we find most all the professed Christian world keeping the first day of the week. How has this come about? We can easily explain. The prophets of God predicted long ages ago that a great anti-christian power should be developed, a man of sin, the papacy, who should think to change times and laws, and into whose hands said times and laws, together with the saints of God, should for 1260 years be given. All history attests that this power has arisen and accomplished its predicted work; and that among other innovations, it has attempted to change the Sabbath of Jehovah to the first day of the week. That power claims in the most explicit terms that it is the author of Sunday-keeping in the church; and the prophet has given us the assurance that the practice would be well-nigh universal, in the prediction that all the world should wonder after the beast. Rev. xiii, 3. The present aspect of the Sunday question is now explained. But we are called upon to dissent from the popular view, first, by this very fact that Sunday-keeping is from an unhallowed source; second, by the direct testimony of the word of God against it, or in favor of the original and only Sabbath; and third, by the prediction that in the last days there would be a reform on this question among the true people of God. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul affords another illustration to the point. Almost all the world are believers in the immortality of the soul. On what ground can this prevailing belief be accounted for? Here also the explanation is easy. The key-note of this doctrine was struck by the old serpent away back in the garden of Eden, "Ye shall not surely die." The inhabitants of earth have been in all ages, with but few exceptions, apostates from God, giving place in their hearts to the doctrines of the Deceiver. Through all the heathen world, therefore, this doctrine has flourished as in its native element. A few years this side the cross, the rising tide of Christianity, as it necessarily must, came into violent contact with the turbid waters of heathenism. The Christian element was not preserved in its purity. The two streams mingled. The villainous compound, thus formed of heathenism and Christianity, produced the papacy; and the Devil took good care that the belief of the immortality of the soul should form a cardinal doctrine in the new combination. From this mother of harlots has descended a numerous progeny of daughters, all bearing along with them this maternal error. Thus the prevalence of this doctrine in both the heathen and Christian worlds is accounted for. But again we are called to dissent, because of the source from which it was derived, because of the plain declarations of God's word to the contrary, because of the errors to which we are now exposed by believing it, and because a reform in this thing also, is predicted to take place in the last days. Let us now apply this principle to the question in hand. The belief almost universally prevails that Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Whatever opponents this belief may have had in times past, those who at present oppose it are few and feeble. How shall we account for this general belief? A view is not necessarily true because universally received. But some powerful influence must have been exerted to produce such general belief; and it must be presumed to be correct, unless it can be shown to be otherwise. Can this view, then, like the two great errors above mentioned, be shown to rest upon a false foundation, or to have come from a corrupt source? Has the man of sin manufactured testimony to prove it? Is it an outgrowth of the corruptions of heathenism, or of the papacy? Testimony to answer any of these questions in the affirmative, entirely fails us. The belief, therefore, that Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, can only be accounted for on the ground that Christians have, by general consent, continually and universally held that the word of God so represents it. Those who deny this, must show how this belief has arisen, and by what means it has obtained such a foothold among believers in the Bible. We dissent from the commonly-received views in relation to Sunday-keeping, because the Bible plainly tells us that the seventh day is the Sabbath, and we should remember it to keep it holy. We dissent from the popular opinion on the immortality of the soul, because the Bible plainly says that the soul that sineth, it shall die. And if we are to dissent from the prevailing belief that Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, it must be because the Bible tells us that it was some other day. But the Bible nowhere says that he rose on any other day than the first. Hence any other view must rest on inference; and if the first day rests on the same, it has at least, in this respect, an equal claim. Concerning the object of differing from the common view on this subject, we shall speak in our next