A Meeting on Sunday by V. N.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 23, 1874

A Meeting on Sunday.

By V. N.

EDITORS' REVIEW AND HERALD: In the last volume of Review, page 196, over the signature of “J. W.,” are thrown out five different challenges, offering five hundred dollars to any one who will prove any one of the five propositions. We think that the 4th proposition can easily be proved. He says “that the disciples of Christ ever had a religious meeting in the day time of that day”—of course referring to the first day of the week. We read in Acts 2 of one of the most powerful meetings that was ever held on the first day of the week, at least it was held on Pentecost, which always comes on the first day of the week. We presume that “J. W.” could not have consulted his Bible or he could not have made such a mistake. A. WOLF. Manhattan, Iowa.

ANSWER: If our friend had carefully read page 169 of the same volume of the Review he would have found this statement:—

“As to Acts 2 : 1, 2, it has not the slightest bearing upon the subject. It mentions the events of the day of Pentecost, which have not, however, any relation, in any way to the change of the Sabbath, and it is, at least, a disputed point among first-day writers of distinction, whether this day of Pentecost actually fell on Sunday or not.—Hacket’s Commentary on the Acts, p. 50.”

A further answer will be found in the History of the Sabbath, pp. 149, 150. After quoting Acts 2 : 1, 2, it says:—

“This text is supposed to contribute an important pillar for the first-day temple. On this wise it is furnished: The disciples were convened on this occasion to celebrate the first-day Sabbath, and the Holy Spirit was poured out at that time in honor of that day. To this deduction there are, however, the most serious objections. 1. That there is no evidence that a first-day Sabbath was then in existence. 2. That there is no intimation that the disciples came together on this occasion for its celebration. 3. Nor that the Holy Spirit was then poured out in honor of the first day of the week. 4. That from the ascension of Jesus until the day of the Spirit’s outpouring, the disciples had continued in prayer and supplication, so that their being convened on this day was nothing materially different from what had been the case for the past ten or more days. 5. That had the sacred writer designed to show that a certain day of the week was honored by the events narrated, he would doubtless have stated that fact, and named that day. 6. That Luke was so far from naming the day of the week that it is even now a disputed point; eminent first-day authors even asserting that the day of Pentecost that year came upon the seventh day. Horatio B. Hacket, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature, in Newton Theological Institution, thus remarks: ‘It is generally supposed that this Pentecost, signalized by the outpouring of the Spirit, fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday.’—Commentary on the Original Text of the Acts, pp. 50, 51. 7. That the one great event which the Holy Spirit designed to mark was the antitype of the feast of Pentecost; the day of the week on which that should occur being wholly immaterial. How widely, therefore, do those err who reverse this order, making the day of the week, which the Holy Spirit has not even named, but which they assume to be the first day, the thing of chief importance, and passing in silence over that fact which the Holy Spirit has so carefully noted, that this event took place upon the day of Pentecost.”

Dean Alford, in his “New Testament for English Readers,” remarks on this passage:—

“The question, on what day of the week this day of Pentecost was, is beset with the difficulties attending the question of our Lord’s last passover; see notes on Matt. 26 : 17; and John 18 : 28. It appears probable, however, that it was on the Sabbath, i. e., if we reckon from Saturday, the 16th of Nisan. Wieseler supposes that the Western Church altered the celebration of it to the first day of the week, in conformity with her observance of Easter on that day. If we take the second day of the passover as Sunday, the 17th of Nisan, which some have inferred from John 18 : 28, the day of the feast of Pentecost will fall on the first day of the week.”

Smith, in his unabridged Dictionary of the Bible, Art. Pentecost, says:—

“Doubts have been cast on the common interpretation of Acts 2 : 1, according to which the Holy Ghost was given to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. Lightfoot contends that the passage means, when the day of Pentecost had passed, and considers that this rendering is countenanced by the words of the Vulgate, cum complerentur dies Pentecostes. He supposes that Pentecost fell that year on the Sabbath. . . . The question on what day of the week this Pentecost fell must of course be determined by the mode in which the doubt is solved regarding the day on which the last supper was eaten. If it was the legal paschal supper, on the 14th of Nisan, and the Sabbath during which our Lord lay in the grave was the day of the omer, Pentecost must have followed on the Sabbath. But if the supper was eaten on the 13th, and he was crucified on the 14th, the Sunday of the resurrection must have been the day of the omer, and Pentecost must have occurred on the first day of the week.”

Olshausen on Acts 2 : 1, remarks:—

“Now since, according to the accounts given regarding the time of the feast, the passover in the year of our Lord’s death fell so that the first day of the feast lasted from Thursday evening at six o’clock till Friday evening at the same hour, it follows of course that it was from Friday evening at six o’clock that the fifth day began to be counted. The fiftieth day fell, therefore, it appears, upon Saturday.”

We may further add that the Pentecost was a yearly festival, and so far from coming always on the first day of the week, it fell on different days of the week in different years, like our fourth of July. V. N.