Time of Christ's Resurrection.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
A FRIEND in Oregon questions the correctness of a statement incidentally made in the Sabbath-school department of the SIGNS a few weeks ago, to the effect that Christ rested in the tomb on the Sabbath day, and rose on the morning of the first day of the week; and he asks, "Is there any Scriptural evidence to prove that our Lord rose from the grave on the first day of the week?" To this we reply that we think there is. It is true that we are not told in so many words when the resurrection took place, but the evidence seems to be clear nevertheless. Jesus told his disciples several times that he would be crucified and rise again the third day. Matt. 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Mark 9:31; Luke 9:22, etc. Christ was crucified on Friday. This fact is plainly stated by Luke, who closes the account of the crucifixion and burial of Christ with these words: "And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on." Luke 23:54. Then he still further identifies the time by saying that the women who saw the burial, "returned, and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." Verse 56. Now it does not require any mathematical skill to determine that "the third day" could not by any possibility be earlier than the first day of the week following, and that it was not later, we know from the record. Therefore the first day of the week must have been the resurrection day. Matt. 28:1 is quoted as proof that Christ rose on the Sabbath; but the statement here is simply (according to our version) that the women came to the sepulcher "in the end of the Sabbath." But the original of this passage allows perfect harmony with Mark 16:1, which says that it was "when the Sabbath was past." These scriptures have to do simply with the coming of the women to the tomb. They came very early on the first day of the week and found the grave empty; but the argument given above is, we think, conclusive as proving that the resurrection did not take place before the beginning of that first day. "But," some will say, "this gives a strong argument to the believers in Sunday sacredness." Not at all. The fact that Christ rose on the first day of the week has no more to do with the Sabbath question than with the doctrine of the temporal millennium. There is no commandment for the observance of the resurrection day; not even an intimation that that day was henceforth to be the Sabbath. From the time of the crucifixion onward, the disciples observed the Sabbath the same as before. Whoever tries to prove that Christ did not rise on the first day of the week, wastes his time, and strengthens those who are keeping Sunday in their determination to do so. Better far to admit at once that Christ rose on the first day of the week, and then show that Sabbath sacredness is not affected in the least by that fact. E. J. W.