What Claims Has the First Day to the Sabbath?
By H.
1. How many “first” days are mentioned in the New Testament? 2. How is the first named? “When the Sabbath was past, . . . very early in the morning of the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.” Mark 16:1, 2. 3. When were these accounts written? Matthew wrote six years after the resurrection; Mark, thirty-two years; Luke, twenty-four years; John, sixty-six years. NOTE.— All of these writers used the term “first day of the week.” Not one mentions the day as the “Lord’s day,” or the Sabbath; but each one is particular to say that it was the day following the Sabbath which the women had kept “according to the commandment” by resting from their labors. Had these men known that the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week, it is only reasonable to suppose that they would make mention of it at the time of the change. When the old Passover feast was held for the last time and the Lord’s Supper was instituted, minute details were given; baptism as an outward sign of a renewed life was fully explained; but of a change in the Sabbath not a word is said. 4. What of the other first day mentioned in the New Testament? “Upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and prolonged his speech until midnight.” Acts 20:7. NOTE.— According to Jewish custom in naming the days, this was on the evening of what we call Saturday. Eutychus fell from the upper window about midnight, after which the company “broke bread,” Paul preaching until daybreak of what we call Sunday morning. He then walked to Assos, a distance of nineteen miles, while his companions brought the ship around, a rather strenuous journey for the Sabbath day, we must admit. If Jewish reckoning of time is not followed, the “breaking of bread,” which is held to be a sign of the Sabbath, came on what we call Monday morning, which advocates of Sunday-sacredness are not ready to admit. So that “first day” was not a Sabbath. 5. What other mention is made of the first day in general? “Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come.” 1 Cor. 16:1, 2. NOTE.— Candidly, where is there the least semblance of a Sabbath argument in this scripture? Paul instructed the churches to take a collection for the saints in need; as the Lord prospered them, they gave. On the first day of the week they reckoned up their accounts and put aside, “in store,” what they could afford; when Paul came, no time was lost in taking collections, for all were ready for him. This was not Sabbath work, but secular, and was therefore done on a weekday. 6. There being no Scripture authority for Sunday-sacredness, what does history say concerning it? “The idea of the transference of the Jewish Sabbath from the seventh day to the first, was an invention of later times.”—Henry Alford, D.D. “The seventh-day Sabbath was . . . solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did, in a manner, quite abolish the observation of it. . . . The Council of Laodicea [A.D. 364], . . . first settled the observation of the Lord’s day.”—Prynne’s Dissertation on the Lord’s Day Sabbath. H.