LORD'S DAY AND THE GREEK.
By H. Wren
Sunday advocates sometimes appeal to the Greek of the New Testament, and Rev. 1:10 is a text which is so used. The Greek expression there is “kuriake hemera,” translated “Lord’s day.” The argument they draw from the phrase is this: kuriake is a term which signifies relating to the Lord, i. e., to Christ. Hence, kuriake hemera is a day relating to Christ, or to the Christian dispensation. This day, they say, cannot be the seventh, as it related to the old dispensation; but it must be Sunday, as this dispensation is characterized by Christ’s having risen on that day. Now, to our mind, this conclusion is not sufficiently obvious to carry with it a conviction of truth. If it could be shown by the advocates of Sunday, that somewhere in the Bible kuriake is applied, in plain terms, to the first day of the week, then their argument from Rev. 1:10 would be good. Or, if failing to find a passage where the adjective kuriake is so applied, they would produce one in which the stem, or original noun, kurios, is so used, that will do; as all will readily admit that if the noun kurios is used to express Christ’s relation to Sunday, then the adjective kuriake, which is derived from kurios, is so used in Rev. 1:10; and they have established their point to the satisfaction of every critic of the Greek. But can they do this? All are free to admit that kuriake is an adjective derived from the noun kurios. Kurios means Lord, and kuriake means Lordlike, or pertaining to the Lord. It is, then, perfectly obvious that if kurios is ever used to express Christ’s relation to the first day of the week, when kuriake is used to describe a day, as in Rev. 1:10, this last day may be, and in all probability is, the first day of the week. Right here is where they must stand or fall. If there is nothing in the Bible which applies either of these Greek words to Sunday, they must give up the case, since it is simply begging the question to assert that kuriake hemera, in Rev. 1:10, is Sunday, without some scriptural authority for such an assertion. It is merely to assume the very point to be proven. An appalling fact here meets our Sunday-keeping friends. That fact is this: that neither kurios nor kuriake is ever used to express Christ’s relation to the first day of the week. But, on the contrary, kurios is expressly used to declare Christ’s relation to the Sabbath day. The Son of man is kurios (Lord) of the Sabbath day. Matt. 12:8. Here kurios is used to show Christ’s relation to some “day;” viz., the Sabbath day. Now, as we have seen, kuriake is an adjective derived from kurios. If, then, we anywhere find kuriake applied to some day, and there is nothing in the passage where it is so used nor in any other passage, requiring us to acknowledge a different day from that to which kurios has been applied, we are bound to conclude that the day to which kuriake is applied is the same as that to which kurios is applied. So that kurios of the Sabbath day is identical in import with kuriake day. Amen; so let it be.