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SEVENTH DAY | WHICH DAYS
Mor people think |
that the seventh day was to be kept
only until the crucifixion of Christ, and
that after Christ rose on the first day of
the week, His people were to keep the
first day, or Sunday, in honor of His
resurrection. But a careful reading of
the New Testament will disclose that
there 1s not one word anywhere in it
which directs or authorizes us to keep
the first day in honor of His resurrec-
tion on that day. If Jesus Christ de-
sired that His people should keep the
first day of the week instead of the
seventh, would He not have told us so
in the New Testament?
It has been thought that there was
some proof for keeping the first day of
the week in John 20:19; Acts 20:7;
1 Corinthians 16 : 2; and Revelation
1:10. But if you will compare John
20:19 with Mark 16: 14, you will see
that, instead of Jesus Christ’s appearing
to His disciples on the resurrection day
while they were in a meeting for wor-
ship, He appeared while they were
eating their supper to reprove them for
their unbelief and to convince them
that He really was alive again. The
very fact that the first day of the week
is mentioned six times in the gospels
(Matthew 28: 1; Mark 16: 1, 2, 9; Luke
24:1; John 20:1, 19) in direct connec-
tion with that particular first day on
which Jesus rose, and yet these texts,
written many years after His resurrec-
tion, say nothing about the first day
being a holy day for Christians in
honor of the resurrection, is conclusive
proof that it did not become a holy day
in honor of the resurrection by any
divine appointment.
h 4
A careful reading of Acts 20:7 wall
reveal that it says nothing about its
being customary for Christians to meet
on the first day of the week, or that
they were then keeping the first day
instead of the seventh. Read from the
seventh verse through to the fourteenth,
and you will find that this first-day
meeting at Troas was merely an
incidental meeting on a farewell oc-
casion, when Paul preached all night
long, on what we call Saturday night,
Page Twelve -
L.
SHULER
[1
and then on Sunday morning took a
long journey by foot, thereby proving he
used the first day of the week for labor
and did not recognize it as a rest day.
A 4
A careful reading of 1 Corinthians
16:2 will reveal that it says nothing
about Christians being in meeting on
the first day of the week, or that they
were keeping the first day of the week,
or that they were to take up a public
collection in church on that day. The
text says: “Upon the first day of the
week let every one of you lay by him
in store.” This was an order for a
private laying aside of a donation for
the poor saints at Jerusalem, to be laid
up in their homes on the first day of
each week, so that when Paul arrived,
they could bring it to him for him to
carry on to Jerusalem.
The Lord’s day of Revelation 1:10
is not the first day of the week. Since
there is not one word in the New
Testament where Jesus Christ has ever
claimed the first day of the week as His
day, or where He ever hallowed, blessed,
sangtified it, or told people to keep it
holy, how could it be Christ's day, or
the Lord’s day? His resurrection on the
first day did not make it the Lord’s
day any more than His crucifixion on
Friday would make that the Lord’s
day.
The Lord’s day is bound to be the day
that Jesus Christ is Lord of, and Mark
Paul preached to the Gentiles on the
Sabbath day.
2: 28 declares that Jesus is lord of the
Sabbath day. Therefore the Sabbath
day is the Lord’s day. Since in Isaiah
58:13 the Lord calls the Sabbath His
holy day, how, then, could the Sabbath
help being the Lord’s day? Since Jesus
Christ as Lord and Creator is the One
who blessed, hallowed, and sanctified
the seventh day, how can the seventh
day help being Christ’s day, or the
Lord’s day?
It is not necessary for us to keep
Friday to honor His crucifixion, which
took place on that day, because Christ
has given us the Lord’s Supper to
commemorate and honor His death.
In the same way, it is not necessary that
we keep Sunday to honor His resurrec-
tion on that day, because He has given
us Christian baptism to commemorate
and honor His burial and resurrection.
(Colossians 2: 12.) So in the light of the
New Testament, it is no more necessary
that we keep Sunday to honor His
resurrection than to keep Friday to
honor His death.
Some have thought that the Sabbath
was changed from the seventh day to
the first between our Lord’s resurrec-
tion and His ascension. But there is not
one text anywhere in the New Testa-
ment which says anything about the
Sabbath’s ever being changed from the
(Continued on page 18)
The Watchman Magazine