The Abiding Sabbath by A. T. J.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 11, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 10.

“The Abiding Sabbath.”

By A. T. J.

“ORIGIN OF THE LORD’S DAY.”

In continuing his efforts to find the origin of the Lord’s day, the author of the “Abiding Sabbath” says:—

“After the several appearances of the Saviour on the day of his resurrection, there is no recorded appearance until a week later, when the first day is again honored by the Master. John 20:26. The exact mention of the time, which is not usual even with John’s exactness, very evidently implies that there already attached a special significance to the ‘first day of the week’ at the time when this gospel was written.”—P. 190.

From Mr. Elliott’s assertion of “the exact mention of the time, which is not usual even with John’s exactness,” it would naturally be supposed that John 20:26 makes exact mention of the first day of the week; we might expect to open the book and read there some such word as, “the next first day of the week,” etc. Now let us read the passage referred to, and see how much exactness of expression there is about the first day of the week. The record says:—

“And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.” John 20:26.

There is the “exact mention” which attaches significance to the first day of the week! That is, an expression in which the first day of the week is not mentioned; an expression, indeed, in which there is no exactness at all, but which is wholly indefinite. “After eight days” is exactly the phrase which John wrote. Will Mr. Elliott tell us exactly how long after? Granting that it was the very next day after eight days, then we would ask the author of the “Abiding Sabbath” if the first day of the week comes every ninth day? If this is to be considered an exact mention of time, unusual even with John’s exactness, then we should like to see a form of words which Mr. Elliott would consider inexact.

Perhaps some one may ask what day we think it was. We make no pretensions to wisdom above what is written. And as the word of God says it was “after eight days,” without telling us anything at all about how long after, we know nothing more definitely about what day it was than what the word tells us, that it was “after eight days.” We know of a similar expression in Matt. 17:1: “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart;” and we know that Luke’s record of the same scene says: “And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter, and John, and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.” Luke 9:28. Therefore we know that Inspiration shows that “after six days” is “about eight days,” and by the same rule “after eight days” is about ten days. But even then it is as indefinite as it was before, and Inspiration alone knows what day it was.

But, though we know nothing at all about what day it was, we do know what day it was not. We know that the meeting previous to the one under consideration was on the first day of the week. John 20:19. We know that the next first day of the week would come exactly a week from that time. We know that a week consists of exactly seven days. And as the word of God says plainly that this next meeting was “after eight days,” we therefore know by the word of God that this meeting was not on the next first day of the week.

Then says Mr. Elliott:—

“These repeated appearances of Jesus upon the first day doubtless furnished the first suggestion of the practice which very quickly sprang up in the church of employing that day for religious assembly and worship. . . . This impression must have been strongly intensified by the miraculous occurrences of Pentecost, if that festival fell, as we think probable, on the first day of the week—a view maintained by the early tradition of the church and by many eminent scholars.”—Pp. 190, 191.

Yes, “doubtless” it “must have been,” “if” it was as he thinks “probable.” But against the “early tradition of the church,” and the “many eminent scholars,” we will place just as many and as eminent scholars, and the word of God. It is true that the day of the week on which that Pentecost came is not of the least importance in itself either for or against any sacredness that was put upon it by that occurrence. It is the day of Pentecost that is named by the word of God. It was the feast of Pentecost with its types, that was to meet the grand object—the reality—to which its services had ever pointed. And everybody knows that the Pentecost came on each day of the week in succession as the years passed by; the same as does Christmas, or the Fourth of July, or any other yearly celebration. Therefore whatever were its occurrences, they could have no purpose in giving to the day of the week on which it fell any particular significance.

Yet though this be true, there is so much made of it by those who will have the first day of the week to be the Sabbath, by claiming always that Pentecost was on the first day of the week, that we feel disposed to refer to the Scriptures, which show that this claim is false.

The word Pentecost signifies “the fiftieth day,” and was always counted, beginning with the sixteenth day of the first month. It is also called “the feast of weeks,” because it was seven complete weeks from the day of the offering of the first-fruits, which was the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, the sixteenth day of the first month. On the fourteenth day of the first month, all leaven was to be put away from all the houses. They were to kill the passover lamb in the evening of the fourteenth, and with it, at the beginning of the fifteenth day of the month, they were to begin to eat the unleavened bread, and the feast of unleavened bread was to continue until the twenty-second day of the month. The first day of the feast, that is, the fifteenth of the month, was to be a sabbath, no servile work was to be done in that day. Ex. 12:6-8, 15-19; Lev. 23:5-7. Because of the putting away of the leaven on the fourteenth day, and the beginning to eat the unleavened bread on the evening of that day, it is sometimes referred to as the first day of unleavened bread; but the fifteenth day was really the first, and was the one on which no servile work was to be done.

On “the morrow” after this fifteenth day of the month—this sabbath—the wave-sheaf of the first-fruits was to be offered before the Lord, and with that day—the sixteenth day of the month—they were to begin to count fifty days, and when they reached the fiftieth day, that was Pentecost. Lev. 23:10, 11, 15; Deut. 16:8, 9. Now if we can learn on what day of the week the passover fell at the time of the crucifixion, we can tell on what day of the week the Pentecost came that year. We know that the Saviour was crucified “the day before the Sabbath.” Mark 15:42. We know that that Sabbath was “the Sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23:54-56), and that was the seventh day—Saturday—and “the day before,” therefore, was the sixth day—Friday. It is plain, then, that Jesus was crucified on Friday; this no one denies; but it is important to distinctly mention it here, because the day before he was crucified, “the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time

is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover.” Matt. 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-15. And that was the evening of Thursday, the fourteenth day of the month; because “the fourteenth day of the month at even is the Lord’s passover.” Lev. 23:5; Ex. 12:6.

From that passover supper Jesus went direct to Gethsemane, whence he was taken by the mob which Judas had brought, and after his shameful treatment by the priests and Pharisees and soldiers, was crucified in the afternoon of the same day. That was the fifteenth day of the month, the first day of the feast of unleavened bread; and the morrow after that day was the first of the fifty days which reached to Pentecost. Therefore, as the day of the crucifixion was the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, and was Friday, the fifteenth day of the month; and as the next day, the sixteenth of the month, was the Sabbath according to the commandment, and was the first of the fifty days; any one who will count the fifty days will find for himself that “the fiftieth day,” Pentecost, fell that year on “the Sabbath day according to the commandment,” and that is the seventh day.

So then the day which the advocates of Sunday sacredness claim has received such sacred sanctions by the occurrences of the day of Pentecost, was not the first day of the week at all; but it was the seventh day, the very day which they so unsparingly condemn. (See “Geikie’s Life of Christ,” “Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible,” and the opinions of such men as Neander, Olshausen, Dean Alford, Lightfoot, Jennings, Prof. Hackett, Albert Barnes, etc.) Let us say again that we make no use of this fact in the way of claiming any sacredness for the seventh because of it; that day, in the beginning, was given “the highest strongest sanction possible even to Deity,” and nothing was ever needed afterward to add to its sacredness. We simply state it as the truth according to the Scriptures; and being, as it is, the truth, it shows that the claims for Sunday sacredness based upon the occurrences of Pentecost are entirely unfounded.

There are two other texts cited by Mr. Elliott in this connection which we shall notice next week.