If it were really true, as some learned men profess to believe, that the Bible sustains the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, there would be no occasion for the many absurd efforts to prove the assumption. A contributor to Sunday Reform Leaflets is so straitened for Bible proof for the alleged change of the day of the Sabbath that he actually presents the following, and, strange as it may seem, he is evidently in earnest about it—
It is not generally known that there is a direct prophecy in the Old Testament that the day should be changed from Saturday to Sunday. The Jews were taught prophetically that there would be a change in the day of the week, but not in the amount of time.
In Ezekiel 43:27 we read thus: 'And when these days are expired, it shall be that upon the eighth day and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings on the altar, and your peace offerings, and I will accept you saith the Lord.'
Here is a plain statement that the offering should be made on the eighth day, corresponding with our Sunday, the first day of the week. And unless the worship on the eighth day refers to the Christian dispensation it has not been fulfilled. In nowhere do we find it fulfilled in the service of the Jewish temple. In nowhere do we read of the Jewish nation changing the day and their worship from the seventh to the eighth day.
By the eighth day we are to understand some particular and important day under the gospel dispensation; for the prophet is prophesying concerning it. But there is no particular day to be noticed under the new dispensation more than another, except the Sabbath day and the service, all the rest were done away as types when the substance came. The Psalmist speaks of this day when he says: 'This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.' It is plain that the whole psalm is a prophecy concerning Christ, and the expression 'this is the day which the Lord hath made,' has a direct reference to the resurrection day. The first day of the week, then, was made and appointed by the Lord God to be the Christian Sabbath.
The offering of the sacrifices on the eighth day referred to by Ezekiel, has a direct reference to the worship of God in Christian churches on the Lord's day. This is plain and pointed. It will do no good to put the verse on the rack, and torture it, in order to make it to squeeze out some other meaning. It refers pointedly to the important change from the seventh to the first day of the week—refers to the service of praise in Christian churches on Sunday. And unless it means this it has never been fulfilled.
This is the latest effort we have seen, and if there be any worst, it is the worst. Lest the reader should doubt that any man did in real earnest give vent to such a proposition, we deem it necessary to be very explicit in stating the authority, so that it may be easily verified. The quotation is from an article by Rev. J. A. Jones, in the Leaflets of March, 1894. This is a quarterly publication, issued at Columbus, Ohio, by Rev. Edward Thomson, LL.D., and is the principal article in that number.
When it comes to forcing in an eighth-day sabbath to correspond with the first day of a seven-day week, right through a dispensation of nearly two thousand years, it would seem that further comment is superfluous. If any reader is too obtuse to see the folly of such a proposition on its face, it would be useless to add argument. Our apology for giving space to so much of what Sir Walter Scott would term a "screed of doctrine" is, that it is issued under the auspices of one who for several years has been somewhat conspicuous as a Sunday reformer. Furthermore, the Sunday mania seems to have taken such a firm hold upon the masses of Christendom that they have just about closed their eyes and made ready to swallow whatever plea for Sunday sacredness any titled churchman may put into their mouths. They seem so ready to grasp at any straw making even the baldest pretense to scriptural authority for Sunday observance, that it becomes necessary to note some things that ordinarily would be deemed too futile to require attention.
In order to see the utter folly of the position taken in the foregoing quotation, it is only necessary to read from the beginning of the fortieth chapter of Ezekiel up to the passage quoted. Note the time of the vision, "in the five and twentieth year of our captivity," meaning the captivity in Babylon. (Ezekiel was a captive in Babylon; see chapter 1:1-3.) It was a vision of their return to Jerusalem and the restoration of the temple, with its service. Dr. Clarke aptly says, "The temple of Jerusalem lying in ruins when Ezekiel had this vision, the Jews needed consolation." So we have in these chapters explicit directions for the rebuilding of the temple, and in verses 10 and 11 of chapter 43 the prophet is directly charged to show it to the people. From verse 18 to 26 are directions for the consecration of the priests and the purification of the altar after it should be restored, before beginning the regular daily service for which it was intended. "Seven days shall they purge the altar and purify it; and they shall consecrate themselves." Verse 26. Then comes the verse quoted by Mr. Jones to prove the change of the Sabbath: "And when these days are expired, it shall be, that upon the eighth day, and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings upon the altar, and your peace offerings; and I will accept you, saith the Lord." Verse 37.
"Eighth day" of what?—Evidently the eighth day from the beginning of the dedication services, which consumed seven days. There is no intimation as to what day of the week it was. There is no intimation that it was "some particular and important day" to be afterward observed. It was simply the day upon which the regular temple service was to be resumed after the dedication. If, as Mr. Jones argues, it meant the change of the Sabbath, then the Sabbath was changed at the restoration of the temple service after the captivity! If the offerings on that "eighth day" made it the Sabbath, then every day after that also became the Sabbath, for the temple service was a daily service. The passage reads, "Upon the eighth day, and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings upon the altar," etc. Every reader of the Bible knows that this was a daily service.
But the Rev. expositor says of this prophecy that "nowhere do we find it fulfilled in the services of the Jewish temple." But we do find it so fulfilled. When the temple was rebuilt by Zerubbabel after the captivity, there was a dedicatory "feast of unleavened bread" seven days. See Ezra 6:14-22. That the prophet is not "prophesying concerning the gospel dispensation" is evidenced by the fact that the people were directed to offer bullocks and rams; and in the following chapter, where instructions are continued in the same vision, we read, "Thus saith the Lord God: No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary." Verse 9. And the Levites were to minister to the house, and to "slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people." See verses 10-14.