Was Pentecost Always on Sunday?
By Editor
IN the California Baptist, of September 12, the Rev. Eli Reese uses over two columns to prove that the day of Pentecost always occurred on Sunday; that therefore the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1 fell on Sunday; that the Holy Spirit fell on that day; and, ergo, the day Sunday is holy. The support of this argument is Mr. Reese's interpretation of the last clause of Lev. 23:15, "Seven sabbaths shall be complete," which, he says, means that seven weeks, always counting from Sunday, must be complete, or full weeks, as the regular week was counted. The morrow after was Pentecost. Mr. Reese admits that "sabbaths" in the text means "weeks," and this is true, as proved by Deut. 16:9. But to the argument of Mr. Reese, we will just say: 1. Forty-nine days would be just as much seven complete weeks if begun on Tuesday as Sunday. 2. The Passover and Pentecost fell on different days of the week, the same as our Fourth of July or New Year's day. Many eminent men, among them Dr. Kitto, believe from the same evidence that Mr. Reese had that the Pentecost of Acts 2:1 fell on the seventh day instead of the first. 3. As it was dated from the Passover, and as the Passover always fell on the fourteenth of the first month, both the Passover sabbath and Pentecost would fall on different days of the week in different years. 4. But if Mr. Reese were correct in his argument (which he is not), it would not prove Sunday a sacred day; for if it were Sunday which God designed to honor by the outpouring of his Spirit, he would have mentioned the day. But the only day mentioned is the day of Pentecost, which there met its antitype and perished. So much for Mr. Reese's argument. Sprinkling and infant baptism could be proved as easily and as scripturally as Mr. Reese has proved his Sunday-Pentecost sabbath.