DID THE APOSTLES CHANGE THE SABBATH?
By F. M. W.
DO THE writings of those connected with our Saviour in His earthly ministry anywhere indicate that a new Sabbath day was set apart for the Christian dispensation? Peter, above all others, labored for his own nationality. Does he anywhere teach that the Sabbath of the past had given way to one in commemoration of Christ’s resurrection? Paul was the great apostle to the Gentile world. Did he set forth the claims of a new Lord’s day? If Christ wrought no change in the law of God, we can not conceive for a single moment that one of the apostles would assume the responsibility of so doing. The abrogation of the law should be as public as its promulgation. From the blazing peaks of Sinai, amid thunder and lightnings, with a voice that shook the earth, the law of God was proclaimed. We can not for a moment believe that any abrogation or change in the divine precepts would be brought about covertly or insidiously, but that it would be as broad and frank and open as is the character of Christ and Christianity. And a careful study of all the epistles of the apostles, not excepting those of James and Jude and the beloved disciple, reveals neither by plain declaration or even by suggestion an abrogation or change. The first day of the week is several times mentioned in the New Testament Scriptures, but not in one single instance is it called the Lord’s day or sabbath; nor is there attached to it, either directly or indirectly, any suggestion of sacredness or holiness. The reader will observe this if he will look up the eight passages cited, the only instances where the first day of the week is mentioned: Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2. In the twentieth chapter of Acts is found the only record in the New Testament of a religious meeting on the first day of the week, and by a close study of the text the reader will observe that this was upon the dark part of the first day, which could have been no other time than what we call Saturday night, as the Bible reckons time from sundown to sundown. On the next morning, in the light part of the day, Paul started off on a journey from Troas to Assos, across the peninsula, to join his companions, who, during his meeting Saturday night at Troas, had been laboring hard to bring the boat around the peninsula to meet him at the appointed time. In the Corinthian letter specific directions are given to the church-members to lay aside a part of their income for the Jerusalem collection. It will also be observed that this money was not to be given at the church in the public congregation, but each was to lay aside the offering by himself in his own home. By some it is argued that every record we have of the meeting of Christ with His disciples after the resurrection was upon the first day of the week. That this was not the case may be abundantly proved, but even if it were so, that of itself would prove nothing for the sacredness3of the first day. When He first met with them on the day of His resurrection, they had no faith that He had risen from the dead, and were upbraided by Him in consequence. See Mark 16:14. And the other occasion on which He met with them was the time when He found them engaged in their old avocation, that of fishing on the Sea of Galilee. If this was upon the first day of the week, it certainly does not speak favorably of the manner in which the disciples regarded it. In contrast with this mention of the first day of the week in the New Testament writings, the seventh day, the day on which the Jews met in their synagogs for worship, which could have been no other than the seventh day of the week, is always spoken of as the Sabbath, thus showing the recognition given this day by Christian writers in the Christian era, writing under the direction and inspiration of the Lord. See Acts 13:14, 15, 42; 17:2; 18:4. In the last two references cited, it is observed that the same course is predicted of Paul as of Christ, that it was customary for him to meet on the Sabbath day for divine worship. And this great apostle, during his last journey through Asia, when he met the elders of the church at Ephesus, in that which he predicted and which proved to be his last meeting with them in this world, declared that he was free from the blood of all men, in that he had not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God. And yet in his epistle to the Ephesians, as well as the historical record of his meeting with that church, as likewise in his epistles to other believers, we find not one word regarding a change in the institution of the Lord’s Sabbath. There can be but one conclusion, and that is that Paul in nowise attached sacredness to the first day of the week, for certainly if he had, he would have counted it a part of the counsel of the Lord and plainly incorporated it in his instruction to the church. Hence we must conclude that the apostles had no authority, nor did they assume the authority, to change the Sabbath commandment. Like their divine Lord, they regarded the holy character of the one universal Sabbath, set apart at the beginning of time for the benefit of the race of man. F. M. W.