The Sabbath in the New Testament.
1. DURING the life of Christ, the Sabbath was always observed by him and his followers. He corrected the errors and false ideas which were held concerning it, but gave no hint that it was to be abrogated. 2. The book of Acts gives a connected history of the recognition and observance of the Sabbath by the apostles while they were organizing many of the churches spoken of in the New Testament. These references extend over a period of eight or nine years, the last of them being at least twenty years after the resurrection. 3. In all the history of the doings and teachings of the apostles there is not the remotest reference to the abrogation of the Sabbath. Had there been any change made or beginning to be made, or any authority for the abrogation of the Sabbath law, the apostles must have known it. To claim that there was, is therefore to charge them with studiously concealing the truth, and also, with recognizing and calling a day the Sabbath which was not the Sabbath. But some will say, “Christ and his apostles did all this as Jews, simply.” If this be true, then Christ lived and taught simply as a Jew and not as the Saviour of the world. On the contrary, he was at war with the false and extravagant notions of Judaism concerning questions of truth and duty. If Christ were not a “Christian,” but a “Jew,” what becomes of the system which he taught? If his followers who periled all for him and sealed their faith with their blood, were only Jews, or worse, were dissemblers, doing that which Christians ought not to do for sake of policy, where shall Christians be found? The idea dies of its own inconsistency. More than this, Bible history repeatedly states that the Greeks were taught on the Sabbath the same as the Jews, and in those churches where the Greek element predominated there is no trace of any different teaching or custom on this point. The Jews kept up their national institutions, such as circumcision and the passover, while all Christians accepted the Sabbath as a part of the law of God. Indeed, the popular outcry against the Sabbath as “Jewish” savors more of prejudice and ignorance than of consistency and charity. Christ was in all respects, as regards nationality, a Jew. So were all the writers of the Old Testament, and all the writers of the New Testament. God has given the world no word of inspiration from Gentile pen, or Gentile lips. Is the Bible therefore “Jewish?” The Sabbath, if possible, is less Jewish than the Bible. It had its beginning long before a Jew was born. It is God’s day, marked by his own example, and sanctified by his blessing, for the race of man, beginning when the race began, and can end only when the race shall cease to exist. Christ recognized it under the gospel as he recognized each of the other eternal laws with which it is associated in the decalogue; recognized them as the everlasting words of his Father whose law he came to magnify and fulfill.—The Outlook.