3819 — The Change of the Sabbath
By Editor
In a publication of a Christian paper I find the statement given in answer to the question, "Who changed the Sabbath?" as follows: "First by the authority of the apostles delegated them by the Lord. Matt. 16:19. They kept the first day of the week. Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:1, 2. Says Neander, 'The apostles rejected the Sabbath to avoid the risk of mingling Judaism and Christianity.' And also, secondly, because on that day Christ rose from the dead and appeared no less than five times to His followers. 3. The outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost occurred on Sunday." Will you please explain this? F. K. Space will not permit an extended explanation. We refer our inquirer, and others who are troubled over this, to the following tracts: "Apples of Gold Library," No. 75, "Which Day Do You Keep? and Why?" 76, "Is Sunday the Sabbath?" 77, "The True Seventh Day?" 78, "Historical Facts and Incidents;" also to the pamphlet "The Lord's Day the Test of the Ages," in which all these questions will be clearly answered. Regarding these statements, there is nothing in Matt. 16:19 to show that the apostles were delegated to do anything else than to teach the Word of God. That text itself ought to be explained by the great commission given in Matthew 28, in which Jesus told His disciples to teach all things whatsoever He had commanded them, but He never commanded any change of the Sabbath, and on the contrary He told us that "not one jot or tittle" of the law could be changed. Matt. 5:17-20; Luke 16:17. So Jeremiah was set over the nations "to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant" (chapter 1:10), but he simply did this by proclaiming God's Word concerning those nations (chapter 18:7-10). Secondly, we have no record whatsoever that the apostles ever kept the first day of the week as a holy day. Acts 20:7 simply records a night meeting held at the beginning of the first day of the week, and the rest of the day spent in regular secular labor; and 1 Cor. 16:1, 2 does not indicate any gathering whatsoever, but that each man should lay by himself at home, as God had prospered him, whatever money he had on the first day of the week, so that it could be gathered when the apostle came. That the apostles did not reject the Sabbath to avoid the risk of mingling Judaism and Christianity is shown again and again by the labors and teaching of the apostle Paul. In the second chapter of Romans he declares that the Jews had the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. In Acts 20 he declares that he had kept back nothing that was profitable, but had taught all things that were necessary, had not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God; but nowhere is there any record that he had taught the Ephesian people any change whatsoever in the Sabbath. He could say, as he met the Jews in Rome, as recorded in Acts 28, that he had done nothing whatsoever against the custom of the fathers, and they could say, We have heard no charge against thee,—that is, he had nowhere transgressed the moral law, as the Jews themselves regarded it. James tells us that we are to keep the royal law according to the Scriptures, and whoso offends in one point is guilty of all. See James 2:8-12. And Peter declares (1 Peter 2:20-22) that Christ is made our Example, who did no sin,—that is, Christ kept the law. He is our Example to follow. And John tells us that he who says that he knows God, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; and continues by saying, "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." See 1 John 2:4-6. Neander lived a good many centuries this side of Christ. He has no more knowledge of it than hundreds of others. The very best knowledge, and the only knowledge, of what the apostles did is found in the Scriptures themselves. Jesus did rise from the dead on the first day of the week, and did appear to His disciples several times, but in no case did He tell them that that day was a holy day. He simply appeared to them on that day in order to show them that He was alive and had risen from the dead. As to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost on Sunday, Pentecost was not a place. The Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost. It was a fulfilment of a type. The day of the week is not even mentioned, and some good authorities contend that it was the Sabbath day. Others think that it was Sunday. But the Lord passed over one first day in the ten between His ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit, which of itself shows that it was not the first day that was to be honored, but the antitype of Pentecost. There is absolutely nothing in God's Word to indicate that the first day was set apart as a holy day, and very many first-day people acknowledge it. There is but one Bible Sabbath, that instituted and commanded of God and observed by our Lord Jesus Christ.