Increased Evidence for the First Day.
By Daniel T. Bourdeau
This evidence is based on a marginal reference as follows: Rev. 1:10 reads, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” In the margin the letter c, on which great stress is laid, as though it was inspiration, refers to John 20:26; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; where the first day is mentioned. From this circumstance the conclusion is drawn that the first day is the Lord’s day. This reminds me of the man who said he could draw water out of wool. Being asked how, he replied, “By first putting it in. So our opponents must first put, “The first day is the Lord’s day,” in the above texts before they can prove what they claim. Those texts say not a word about the Sabbath, or the change of the Sabbath, or about the first day being the Lord’s day. And did they, or any other Scripture, establish the first day as the Sabbath, we would simply have two Sabbaths on our hands; for the fourth commandment, which remains unrepealed, enforces the seventh day. But this would be unreasonable. And as to the Lord’s day, we read, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” and the Lord calls it, “my holy day;” and of that day Christ styles himself Lord. Ex. 20:8-11; Isa. 58:13; Mark 2:28. The Lord never claimed any other day of the week as his own. But how is the first day mentioned in the texts referred to, and in their connection and parallel texts? Answer: 1. As the day in which Christ appeared to his disciples to convince them that he was risen from the dead. And at that time Christ upbraided them for their unbelief in his resurrection, as “they sat at meat,” i. e., were eating their supper, Mark 16:9-14, and consequently were not having a religious meeting to commemorate his resurrection. 2. As a day, the night part of which, corresponding with our Saturday night (for the day commenced at sunset), Paul held one religious meeting with the disciples at Troas, “ready to depart on the morrow.” And while Paul was preaching, Luke and others were sailing a ship around a neck of land from Troas to Assos. And Sunday morning Paul started on foot for Jerusalem. And Paul delighted in the law of God, and kept the Sabbath. Rom. 7:22; Acts 13:42, 44; 16:13; 17:1-4; 18:4, 11. 3. 1 Cor. 16:2, mentions the first day as a business day, in which every Christian in Corinth, &c., was to lay by him in store, or at home in store, Greek, French, &c., as God had prospered him, and not to meet to worship and take up a public collection. And the church at Corinth was raised keeping the Sabbath. Acts 18:4, 11. In regard to marginal references, it is a well-known fact that they are of recent origin. They sometimes assist the reader, and sometimes they lead away from the truth. Our present division of the Bible into chapters and verses is said to have been made by Jerome in the fourth century. Therefore, letters in the margin referring to chapters and verses must date this side of that time. They differ in different languages, and originated in their present form this side of the translation of the Bible into modern tongues.