DR. AKERS has two fundamental arguments: 1. He asserts that he can count the time to a day from Christ's resurrection back to God's rest-day in Paradise, and then forward to Abib 16 in Egypt, which day was also God's rest-day. 2. And he alleges that he can prove that Israel, by divine direction, observed Abib 15, and not Abib 16. Wherefore, it follows that the Sabbath was then set back one day.
But when Dr. Akers asserts that the first day of the week of Matt. 28:1 is the same as the seventh day of Gen. 2:2, 3, because the time comes out in even weeks, counted from one to the other, the very fact that the day at one end of the reckoning is not the same as at the other, shows that, unless he can prove a change of the week between these two points, his reckoning is false. For either Matthew or Moses gives a wrong name to the day; as one, at one end of the chain, calls it "first day of the week," and the other, at the other extremity, calls it the seventh day. Hence he attempts to remove the contradiction, and to sustain his reckoning, by changing the weeks in Egypt. But we have proved that the weeks were not changed in Egypt. And having proved this, we have thereby shown that his count, which starts at Matt. 28:1 with the day as first day of the week, and ends with it as the seventh, Gen. 2:2, 3, is certainly an effort to prove an absolute falsehood! The change of the weeks in Egypt, and the count of the days by Dr. A., are both an entire mistake, and wholly unworthy the confidence of the reader.
Dr. Akers' act of counting the days from the resurrection of Christ back to the day of the Creator's rest, is all mere talk, for the pretension is preposterous. But this amounts to nothing unless he can show that there was one week somewhere between the two points that had only six days in it, for it is thus only that he can bring the New-Testament "first day" to be identical with the Paradisaical "seventh-day." But unfortunately, the only way to prove this week of six days (of which the Bible says nothing) is by means of this alleged exact count. And even this count is of no consequence, unless it be shown that the day kept by the Hebrews was one day earlier than the true seventh day, an attempt which has already been shown to be an entire failure.
The history of this Sunday-seventh-day, or Sunday-seventh-day-first-day theory, is very remarkable. The man who first gave this theory to the world, so far as we are informed, was the distinguished Joseph Mede, who died in 1638. Dr. Jennings thus states his theory:
"The learned Mr. Mede endeavors to prove the seventh day of the Jewish week, which was appointed for the Sabbath, to be the day on which God overthrew Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and thereby completed the deliverance of his people from the Egyptian servitude. And, whereas a seventh day had before been kept, in memory of the creation (but to what day of the Jewish week that answered, we cannot certainly say), now God commanded them to observe for the future this day of their deliverance, which was the seventh day of their week, in commemoration of his having given them rest from their hard labor and servitude, in Egypt."
This theory of Mr. Mede's asserts the change of the Sabbath from God's seventh day to the seventh day of the Jewish week. But to what day of the Jewish week God's seventh day corresponded, he did not know; so that it would seem hard to prove by any evidence of Mr. Mede's that it was certainly changed at all. But Mr. M. endeavors to prove that Pharaoh was overthrown in the Red Sea on the seventh day of the Jewish week; which day had required the Jewish people to keep, in memory of that event. Thus the Sabbath was changed at the passage of the Red Sea, but what day it was changed from, Mr. M. did not know.
This was the greatest light which Mr. M. could shed upon the change of the Sabbath in Egypt. But though it was seen that the Sabbath could not have been changed at that point, yet the very idea that it was changed at the commencement of the Jewish dispensation, was so serviceable in helping to prove that it was changed again at its close, that it could not be given up.
But though the idea of this change was too valuable to the friends of the first-day Sabbath, yet it was plainly seen that it could not have been changed at the point fixed by Mr. Mede; or that if it was, nobody could find any record of it.
So it came to pass after more than a hundred years, that Dr. Jennings took up the grand idea of changing the Sabbath from the Paradisaical rest-day to the so-called Jewish Sabbath. This itself, in his estimation, was very precious, but Mr. Mede was mistaken in the precise time and place. It was not changed at the passage of the Red Sea, but at the fall of the manna. Dr. Jennings could see clearly that the Sabbath must have been changed when given to Israel (it was so desirable); but he also saw that there was nothing to sustain the change where Mr. Mede had fixed it. So Dr. Jennings decided that the fall of the manna was the very point where this change was effected. And he taught that the fall of the manna was made to bear testimony in behalf of the new Jewish Sabbath and against the ancient Sabbath of the Lord. The Jews never changed the day after this, it is certain; so if he can change it here, it will be easy to change it again at the resurrection; and if he cannot prove it to have been changed at this time, hereabout, then the Jews have now the true seventh day.
Thus the case stood for another hundred years, or more, when Dr. Akers took the case in hand. It was a precious idea that God had given to Israel the sixth day of the week, as the Sabbath, and that he had taken from them the true seventh day of the week, Sunday. But though Dr. Jennings had fixed the time and place of this auspicious change, as being at the fall of the manna, and not at the Red Sea, as asserted by Mr. Mede, yet Dr. A. could see that Jennings had not got it right. There was nothing to his argument fixing it at the fall of the manna, in Ex. 16.
Dr. A., by counting the days in the manner which we have seen, satisfied himself that the change took place on the day of unleavened bread in Egypt. So he publishes to the world, in 1855, the grand fact that at the exodus, God changed the Sabbath from Abib 16 to Abib 15 i. e., from the seventh day of the week to the sixth! For, according to Dr. A., God took from his people his own hallowed rest-day, and gave them a ceremonial Sabbath made out of the sixth day!
But the matter is not yet settled. Some ten years after Dr. Akers' book was published, the Rev. E. Q. Fuller tried his hand at this great undertaking. Dr. Akers has fixed the time and place all right, but he does not rightly state the change. The Sabbath was not changed from the seventh day to the sixth, as Dr. Akers asserts. No, indeed! It was changed from the first day of the week to the seventh! And instead of there being one week in Egypt with only six days in it, Mr. F. declares that that week had two Sabbaths in it, viz., its first day and its seventh!
Thus Mr. Mede, early in the seventeenth century, announced a wonderful fact. It was this, that the Hebrew people did not have the original Sabbath, or rather, it was taken from them, and the Saturday Sabbath was given them in its place at the passage of the Red Sea.
That is a grand idea! responds in substance, Dr. Jennings a hundred years later; you are right as to the change of the Sabbath, at the commencement of the Jewish dispensation, but mistaken in the time and place of its occurrence, and in the arguments you adduce to prove it. It did not occur at the crossing of the Red Sea, but at a later point, at the fall of the manna.
Not so, virtually responds Dr. Akers221something more than a hundred years later. Though your zeal for the great truth that the Hebrew people had the ancient seventh-day Sabbath taken from them, and a new Sabbath made for them out of the sixth day of the week, is very praiseworthy, yet you are even farther from the truth as to the time and place of the change than was Mr. Mede, and your arguments to prove the change are not sound. It was not changed at the fall of the manna, but on the day that Israel started out of Egypt. And I ascertain the fact of the change by counting the exact number of days from the creation to the exodus.
But Mr. Fuller now rises, and in brief responds to Dr. Akers after this manner: I am much indebted to you for the count of the days you have made from the creation to the exodus. You show Sunday to be the original Sabbath to my full satisfaction. But when you state that God changed the Sabbath at the exodus from the seventh day to the sixth, you make a bad mistake. Not so. It was changed from the first day of the week to the seventh! And I prove it by your own figures in which you count the days from creation!
One grand error is held in common by all these theologians, which is that God took away from his people his own Sabbath and gave them in its stead a ceremonial Sabbath. But while they are all interested to prove this assertion, one of them says that this change was at the Red Sea; the second says it was at the fall of the manna; the third says it was effected at the exodus by changing from the seventh day to the sixth; while the fourth says that it was changed at that point from the first day to the seventh!
Thus they all agree that the Jews did not have the Sabbath of the Lord, but they entirely disagree in proving it. Their case is like that of the false witnesses who all testified that Jesus was not the Christ, but did not at all agree in the nature of the proof!