Is the First Day the Sabbath?
By Lucilla L. Harmon
The Second Meeting with the Disciples
WE learned in our last study that Jesus did not set apart the first day of the week as a Sabbath; that He did not meet with the disciples until that day had passed; that His disciples at that meeting did not believe He had risen from the dead. Here is the record of the next meeting: “And AFTER eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas [absent at the last meeting] was with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.” John 20: 26. After eight days. We are sure it was on the evening following the first day that He met with them the first time. He walked with the two disciples who went to Emmaus, and when they drew near the village it was toward evening and Jesus went in and sat down to the evening meal with them, and after this you know they walked seven and one-half miles back to Jerusalem to tell the apostles He had arisen. Luke 24: 29-34. Now “after” means, behind, subsequently to, following; as “After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.” Matt. 26: 32. “And Sarah died in Kirjatharba; And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah.” Gen. 23: 2, 19. Yet we are told that “after eight days” means the next first day! Is it difficult to understand the meaning of after in the texts above quoted?—Certainly not. There is no other place in the Bible or outside it where after is given the meaning of before or on except in John 20: 26. But it has its usual meaning there. “After eight days” would certainly carry us forward to the next week, Monday or Tuesday. When God says after He means it. The record of the Gospels does not in any way support a first-day Sabbath. The passage in Acts 20: 7 merely records a night meeting on the first day of the week, the rest of which day was spent in travel. In 1 Cor. 16: 1, 2, instruction is given by the apostle to the early Christians to look over their account, and lay by themselves, store up, funds to be handed to the apostle when he came. In every mention of the first day of the week there is nothing to even indicate it was a holy day. Let God be true.