The Day of Pentecost by W. M. Healey

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 11, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 27.

The Day of Pentecost

By W. M. Healey

THE Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured upon the disciples at Jerusalem, and great power was given them to preach the Gospel, was a wonderful day in the history of the church.

The advocates of Sunday observance often point to the Day of Pentecost for a reason why the first day of the week should be kept sacredly as a Sabbath. They argue something like this: (1) The Holy Spirit fell with great power on the church on the Day of Pentecost. (2) This Pentecost came on the first day of the week. Conclusion: The first day of the week should be kept as a day of rest and worship.

If both premises were true, there is nothing in them to warrant the conclusion — absolutely nothing. There is no mention of the first day of the week, or of any day of rest. It is not said that when the first day of the week was fully come, but "when the Day of Pentecost was fully come." The whole account is about the Pentecost, and what occurred on the Day of Pentecost, and not what took place on any day of the week.

The disciples had been in Jerusalem about ten days from the ascension of Christ, waiting for the fulfilment of His promise and instruction, to remain at Jerusalem until they should receive power from the Father, and the Holy Ghost should be given them. There had already been one first day of the week passed while they were waiting, and no demonstration of power or glory occurred; and if the first day had become a day of rest and worship, it was just as much so on that first one in Jerusalem as it was on the second one.

The power was to enable them to carry the Gospel to all the world, and not to fit them for Sunday observance. Had it been simply a first-day blessing, to honor that day, it would have been removed (like the Sunday clothes) when the day was past, and restored to the church again on the next Sunday.

The Day of Pentecost did not come on any particular day of the week, but was reckoned from other feasts. In the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus is given a list of feasts that came once a year, with their sacred or sabbath days, which the thirty-eighth verse says are "beside the Sabbaths of the Lord;" that is, they have no connection with His regular weekly memorial, the seventh-day Sabbath.

In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day [of the seven days' feast] ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. Lev. 23:5-8.

The next day after this day of holy convocation, or sabbath of the feast, they were to wave the sheaf of the first-fruits of the harvest. Verse 11.

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering: seven Sabbaths shall be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat-offering unto the Lord. Lev. 23:15, 16.

That Jesus was crucified on Friday is proved from the fact that it was the preparation day. Luke 23:54. The Passover had been eaten the day before, or on Thursday. Therefore the day of the crucifixion, Friday, must have been the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the day when the sheaf of the first-fruits was waved before the Lord, and a day observed as a festival sabbath. From the morrow after this sabbath they were to reckon fifty days to the Pentecost. On this occasion that "morrow after" would come on the seventh-day Sabbath, and one week would bring them to the next Friday night, the second week would end Friday night, and so on for seven weeks. Forty-nine days would end the seventh Friday night, and one day more added to make the fifty would bring the Pentecost on the weekly seventh-day Sabbath.

That the reckoning was from the ceremonial sabbath, and not from the weekly Sabbath, is proved by the statement that it was to count "from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering" (Lev. 23:15), which we have seen was the day after the ceremonial sabbath of the feast of unleavened bread. Then if any day was to be signally honored by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it was the seventh and not the first day of the week.