THE next meeting was at a lake side, when the disciples had toiled all night and taken nothing. Jesus appeared on the shore, and told them to cast the net on the other side of the ship; and when they did this they could not draw the net for the multitude of the fishes. It is plainly said, "This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples, after that He was risen from the dead." John 21:14.
There is no hint or intimation as to what the day of the week was on which this took place. Our friends who, to furnish basis for their assumption of Sunday sacredness, so boldly declare that all of Christ's meetings with His disciples after the resurrection, were on the first day of the week, not only do so here without warrant, but if their assertion were true, they would only gain for their point the plain record that Jesus gave His assent to an apostolic example for fishing on Sunday.
The Ascension.
The fourth and last meeting of the risen Lord with His disciples was at the ascension, which is plainly declared to be forty days after the resurrection. Forty days after any given first day of the week, could not fall on another first day, but would clearly come on Thursday instead. It was on Thursday, therefore, that Jesus last met with His disciples, and instructed them, and then was taken up from them into heaven; and it was on this day, as they gazed intently into heaven after their departing Lord, that the angels met them, and promised that Jesus should come again.
The only one of these four meetings that we know was on Sunday was the first one, and it is plainly revealed that this was that He might have witnesses to the fact that He arose the third day according to the Scriptures, and therefore met with them that He might consecrate that day.
The second meeting we know was on Monday or Tuesday, and the fourth was on Thursday. If, therefore, there was any other meeting on Sunday, it was when Jesus taught the disciples where to cast their net to get the fish.
The Day of Pentecost.
To satisfy the consciences of those who wish to regard the first day as sacred, it is assumed that Pentecost, with its marvelous outpouring of the Spirit, fell on that day and forever consecrated it. But Pentecost, as the name implies, always came fifty days after the sheaf was waved, and that was waved on the morrow after the yearly Passover Sabbath.
Jesus was the antitypical first-fruits, waved on the cross between earth and heaven, on the morrow after the Passover Sabbath, and on the preparation day for the weekly Sabbath. Fifty days after His crucifixion on Friday would bring Pentecost that year on Saturday. So Horatio B. Hackett, D.D., professor of Biblical literature in Newton Theological Seminary, remarks, "It is generally supposed that this Pentecost, signalized by the outpouring of the Spirit, fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday."
Here, therefore, or elsewhere, the assumptions of those who would honor Sunday, are squarely opposed by facts, and yet, if true, they would prove nothing concerning the abolition of the seventh-day Sabbath and the institution of another day to take its place.
The resurrection of our Lord is a glorious event. But no one can possibly honor that event more than does Paul in that wonderful resurrection chapter, the fifteenth of 1 Corinthians. Yet in that whole chapter he never once mentions the day of the resurrection. It is not the day of the week but the event itself that He glorifies. How can those who teach that ever after the first day of the week was to be sacredly observed in commemoration of that event, explain Paul's absolute silence on the subject when devoting one of the longest and grandest chapters in the New Testament to the subject of the resurrection?
In another place, when speaking of the subject, Paul gives the true divinely-appointed commemoration of both the crucifixion and resurrection in these words: "Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." Rom. 6:4, 5.
Baptism, and not the observance of any day of the week, is the true memorial of both the crucifixion and the resurrection.
Redemption.
Great and glorious as was the resurrection of our Lord, that event did not complete redemption, as is often taught. Redemption is not yet complete, for Paul, long after the Lord's resurrection, teaches that the whole creation still groans and travails in pain, waiting for the redemption; and he pleads with us not to grieve the Holy Spirit whereby we are sealed "unto the day of redemption." Rom. 8:22, 23; Eph. 4:30.
When redemption is complete, every tear will have been wiped away. Death, that last enemy, will have been destroyed. Every creature in heaven and in earth shall unite their voices in the grand anthem, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." This is the "day of redemption," concerning which we are told to rejoice as we see it "drawing nigh."
Surely, then, if the Lord shall see fit to set apart this day in commemoration of a completed redemption, we will all observe it gladly. But all this glorious redemption has been through His everlasting covenant, of which the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, is the sign.
We need not wonder, then, that, after all this, we read that in the new earth—redemption complete—"from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come up to worship before Me, saith the Lord." Redemption is only that part of creation which restores what has been lost through sin. The morning stars will again sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy. The Sabbath is redemption day as well as creation day, and in both it is the Lord's day, for He is Creator and Redeemer.