The Sanctification of the First Day of the Week.
By John Nevins Andrews
From "Les Signes des Temps."
THEY are making in our day, in all parts, great efforts to establish the doctrine that God has sanctified the first day of the week, in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, and they teach that all men should abstain from all ordinary labor on this day. We respect all those who are engaged in this movement with the sincere desire to glorify God; but we cannot have sympathy for the work they have undertaken to accomplish. We can explain our position in the following terms: The Bible tells us that in the beginning God sanctified the seventh day; but it does not, in any place, tell us that God has ever sanctified the first day. All persons, whether Protestant, Catholic, or infidel, who have any knowledge of the Bible, acknowledge this declaration to be true. We will repeat it because of its importance. In the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, but he has never at any time sanctified the first day. This proposition really covers all the ground of controversy between those who keep the seventh day, and those who keep the first day, and should decide the question.127But although no one can deny that the Bible speaks most clearly of the sanctification of the seventh day, and although no one can assert that it has ever mentioned the sanctification of the first day, at the same time there are many men of capability and learning, who endeavor to show by argument that we should sanctify the first day and not the seventh. The assertion that men who believe in God will refuse to keep holy the day which God has blessed and will in its place sanctify to themselves, with enthusiasm, the day which God has never blessed, would seem incredible did not universal observation show this to be a fact. THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE SEVENTH DAY.
It is therefore necessary that we seek and examine the reasons which they suppose justifies such strange conduct. This cannot be justified by the fact that there is any doubt that God sanctified the seventh day in the beginning, for this fact is also attested to by Moses, in the record of the creation; "and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work that God created and made." Gen. 2: 3. And this was confirmed by God himself, when he gave the ten commandments: "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." Several things are evident from these two passages: 1. That the day sanctified was not an indefinite day; but that it was really the special day during which the Creator rested. 2. That this sanctification took place in the beginning, showing that it was done in the interest of the whole human family. 3. That it came before the fall of man, showing that the day sanctified was not a part of the ceremonial law, or a yoke of bondage. 4. That this sanctification created an obligation worthy to constitute the fourth commandment of the moral law, and a commandment which can never be put aside, while the law of God retains its authority. THE FIRST DAY NOT THE DAY SANCTIFIED.
Now we will examine what the New Testament says of the sanctification of the first day of the week. When God sanctifies a day he sets it apart, or consecrates it to holy usage, and he is therefore by duty bound to give a commandment to man in order that the day thus sanctified be not employed for other than a holy purpose. Men sanctify the day thus set apart when they obey the commandment which God has given concerning the day. It is therefore evident that man cannot, by his own action, sanctify a day before God has first sanctified it by his own commandment. If God has sanctified the first day, in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, he should have done it as soon as Christ was risen from the dead, because the obligation commences as soon as the reason for the obligation exists. Thus if Christ arose at an early hour on the first day of the week, and if in the mind of God this fact constituted a reason for which this day should be sanctified, we may be sure that its sanctification took place without delay. But the act to sanctify the first day should have been the same substantially as the act by which the seventh day was sanctified at the beginning. The angel of God should have said to the disciples: "Christ is risen from the dead on this day, and consequently God has blessed the day and set it apart for a holy usage in commemoration of this event." But every one knows that nothing of this sort is recorded in the history of the resurrection of Christ, nor in any other part of the New Testament, and that the conduct of the disciples on the day of the resurrection of Christ, shows that such a message could not have been given. For if the angel of God had appeared in glory, and they had announced the resurrection of Christ and the sanctification of the first day of the week, all would have believed that Christ was risen from the dead, and they would have observed by a holy rest the first day, as consecrated to the Lord. But nothing of this sort took place, and it is evident that most of the disciples were not convinced that Christ was then risen until the close of the day. Mark 16: 9-14. St. Mark is the only one of the Evangelists who states that Christ arose the first day. The first day is mentioned eight times in the New Testament: Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2. The seventh day or the Sabbath of the Lord is mentioned fifty-nine times. Matt. 12:1, 2, 5, (twice), 8, 10, 11, 12; 24:20; 28:1; Mark 1:21; 2:23, 24, 27 (twice), 28; 3:2, 4, 6; 15:42; 16:1; Luke 4:16, 31; 6:1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13; 10, 14 (twice), 15, 16; 14:1, 3, 5; 23:54, 56; John 5:9, 10, 16, 18; 7:22, 23 (twice); 9:14, 16; 19:31 (twice); Acts 1:12; 13:14, 27, 42, 44; 15:21; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4. The feast days, new moons, and annual sabbaths of Lev. 23, are mentioned once in the New Testament, for the purpose of showing that they are abolished. Col. 2:16. Should they say to us that the first day of the week would not have been mentioned eight times, if it were not to show that this day should take place of the Sabbath, we would reply, that it was necessary to speak of the first day in relation to the resurrection of Christ, and that there were four evangelists to speak of this same event. Two of them mention it once each. The other two mention it twice each. Excepting these, it is mentioned but twice in the New Testament. But it is remarkable that in these eight examples wherein this day is mentioned, it is but once said that the resurrection of Christ took place on that day (Mark 16:9), and in none of those places do we read of the sanctification of the first day of the week in commemoration of this event. The six places in which the four evangelists mention the first day (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19), simply show that after the Sabbath had passed, some of the disciples went to the sepulcher, and found that the Saviour had risen. And were it not for the testimony of Mark 16:9, we might raise the question whether Christ arose at the commencement of the first day or at the close of the seventh. The four evangelists not only neglect to speak of the sanctification of the first day, in honor of the resurrection of Christ, but, with the exception of Mark alone, they also neglect to inform us that Christ arose on that day. Each of the evangelists mention the Sabbath in connection with the first day of the week: Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 23:56; 24:1; John 19:31, 42; 20:1. But while they speak of the seventh day as the Sabbath, they do not give any sacred title to the first day. The whole world could not transfer the sanctification of the seventh day to the first. If the first day of the week became the Christian Sabbath, the four evangelists did not know it when they wrote their gospels, for it would have been of the greatest importance that they should announce this fact, if the fact existed. At the same time they pass it in silence, although their writings should give authority for the observance, if there were such authority. But Luke tells us that when the women had prepared the spices to embalm the body of Christ, the Sabbath commenced, and that they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. When these women came to the sepulcher early in the morning, the first day of the week, it was in order at last to accomplish that which they had commenced to do, and which they had neglected to finish on account of the Sabbath. Luke, writing under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, mentions their conduct with evident satisfaction. Luke 23:55, 56; 24:1. Whence came the idea that the first day of the week was sanctified at the resurrection of Christ in honor of the event? Why do the evangelists pass in silence the sanctification of the day? Why did three of these also neglect to mention even that he arose on that day? Why did not one of them say: "God sanctified the first day because that in it Christ arose from the dead?" Either the Spirit of God did not judge the sanctification of the first day worthy of mention, or else this sanctification never took place. But if God has judged proper to consecrate this day, the act was not only worthy of being mentioned, but it was absolutely necessary, in order that it might be known that the seventh day was no longer holy, God having in its place sanctified the first. If the evangelists had known anything of the sanctification of the first day they would have spoken of it. If they knew nothing of it, how is it that the present generation so far surpasses in wisdom the evangelists? In the last number of our paper we have shown that the first day of the week cannot be the day mentioned in Rev. 1:10. In our next number we will speak, if God permits, of the two passages in which the first day is mentioned after the resurrection of Christ; and we will look for the pretended gradual development of the sanctification of the first day in the early church. One fact must be apparent to every reader of this article, and that is, that God has sanctified the seventh day of the week, and that he never has the first. The seventh day is therefore the holy day of the Lord, notwithstanding that all profane it; and the sabbath celebrated on the first day of the week is but a human institution, notwithstanding that all unite to sanctify it. J. N. A.