In the preceding paper it was shown that the sabbath was made a characteristic feature of the legal system established at Sinai. It is not thereby implied that it was then first instituted; for scripture is explicit that the seventh day was sanctified by God from the creation, being the day on which He rested from all His work which He had made (Gen. 2:1-3).
Traces of a division of time into periods of seven days appear in the history of the deluge (Gen. 7:4, 10; 8:10, 12). These are sufficient to indicate that the knowledge of the seventh day, was handed down from the beginning. So we also find that in Ex. 16, before the promulgation of the law, Jehovah marked the seventh day from the others, in that no manna descended on that day, a double quantity being given on the sixth. The seventh day was to be the rest of the holy sabbath, and every man was to abide in his place.
The day is there regarded as a known institution, not then sanctified for the first time. And in its character as a day of rest which is specially insisted on (Ex. 16), it corresponds with that which distinguished the seventh day historically at the first (Gen. 2), and which indeed is ever its inseparable character, as doctrinally stated in Heb. 4.
But we find in Ex. 16 that this day, so carefully guarded by Jehovah, was dishonored by some of the people, who, ignoring the word of the Lord, went out as usual to gather manna. Consequently, the observance of the sabbath was immediately afterward embodied in the ten words of the law, and fenced about with its curse upon the breaker. It became also, as we have already seen, the sign of the covenant relationship of the people of Israel with God (Ex. 31:13). That which was connected in its origin with a sinless creation was subsequently made the mark of God's earthly people, though as a matter of fact they never entered into His rest (Psa. 95:11; Heb. 4:3). The reason they did not enter in was their sin of unbelief and hardness of heart. For where sin and its effects are, there can be no sabbath.
Therefore it is not till the Lord Jesus, as Jehovah's Anointed one, undertakes the judgment and extirpation of sin from the world that the sabbath in its essential character will be kept. Then in the millennium, the land of Israel shall enjoy her sabbaths, as saith the prophet.
Let it therefore be allowed that the sabbath is connected by way of distinction with God's earthly people. We will now examine the New Testament with a view of learning in what light the first of the week and the sabbath are to be regarded.
The point of our inquiry then is to be whether or not the first of the week is brought into special prominence by the facts and teaching given by Christ and His apostles. We at once find that it is so distinguished by a fact of transcendent import, inasmuch as upon the first of the week the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
When we reflect ever so slightly upon the immense significance of the resurrection of Christ, we shall be driven to conclude that the great importance of the event must stamp a character upon the day by which it becomes unique. The Lord's resurrection is by the apostle (1 Cor. 15) made the chief basis on which he rests his comprehensive arguments in demonstration, not alone of the truth of resurrection generally, but also of our present deliverance from sins. “If Christ be not raised,” the apostle says to the Corinthian saints, “your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17).
It was plainly the very substratum on which the edifice of the Christian faith was reared. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the prominent feature of the preaching of the apostles as narrated in the Acts. Nor is it difficult to see why it should be so. For was it not the great act by which the accomplishment of the work of the atonement was divinely attested? He Who was “crucified through weakness” yet liveth by the power of God (2 Cor. 13:4). He Who was delivered for our offenses was raised again for our justification (Rom. 4:25). It spake aloud therefore to the believer as the guarantee of all that is given him in the gospel. Nor was its voice less distinct to the unbeliever, being the assurance that God gives unto all that He will judge the habitable world by the Man, Christ Jesus (Acts 17:31).
Besides, this day of supreme eventfulness was, in point of fact, the inauguration of a new era. The Jews ate their passover and observed their sabbath with the greater unctuousness as they remembered that the body of Jesus of Nazareth was lying in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, watched by a guard of Roman soldiers. Resurrection was furthest from their expectations. So it seems to have been from those of the disciples even. It was indeed so far removed from their hopes as godly Jews that the One Whom they believed to be the Messiah of Israel should terminate His earthly career in disaster and apparent failure, that they appear to have abandoned themselves to despair. Two of them we know had such little faith in the resurrection that they were going to Emmaus in an utterly forlorn and downcast mood, even after they heard from certain women that they had seen a vision of angels, who told them Jesus was alive (Luke 24:23).
But when they lifted up their eyes at the breaking of the bread, and beheld the Risen Jesus in the Stranger Who had drawn out their hearts till they burned within them, they became like new men. Their heaviness and sorrow vanished. They immediately retraced their steps to Jerusalem in exuberant joy.
These two men do but form in themselves an illustration of what is grandly true in a universal aspect. The resurrection changed entirely the color of man's history. It stands between the guilt of man and the grace of God. It is the terminus ad quem of the record of man's hostility against God, culminating as it does in the highest pinnacle of human enormity—the crucifixion of Christ; and, on the other hand, it is the terminus a quo of the magnificent outflow of divine grace and righteousness to the guilty Jew and debased Gentile alike.
Now it was on the first of the week that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus took place. Has this fact no significance? Apparently none whatever in the eyes of C. W.; for we cannot discover a single reference to the event in his tract. And yet we might well ask ourselves, If the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was worthy of being memorialized throughout all their generations, how much more the day of the Lord's resurrection!
But we also learn that He not only rose from the dead but that most of His recorded appearances to His disciples took place on that day of the week. First, the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9); then to her again with the other Mary (Matt. 28:1, 9); to Cleopas and his companion on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:15); to Peter alone (Luke 24:34); to the disciples gathered together (John 20:19). These all learned on the first of the week the joyful news of the Master's resurrection: Individually and collectively, the fact was, on that day, impressed upon them with all its gladsome associations.
It was also when the disciples were gathered together on that memorable day that the Lord, appearing in their midst, breathed upon them and imparted the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of life. This was a direct consequence of His own resurrection and a fulfillment of His promise that they should have life more abundantly (John 10:10).
Moreover, He then commissioned them as His earthly representatives: “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:23). The Lord did not wait until the day of His ascension to do this; but duly installed them thus on the first of the week.
But C. W. might say, “Yes, but all this happened on the actual day on which the Lord rose. What reference or application has it to every first day of the week?” In reply we point to the verses that succeed those just referred to in John 20.
Thomas Didymus was not present when Jesus first came. And we find that on the succeeding first of the week (the seventh, or sabbath, day is passed over in silence) the disciples are similarly gathered together, Thomas now being with them, stubborn in his refusal to believe until he saw for himself. The other disciples had told him, apparently at once (John 20:25); but Thomas remained a whole week in unbelief until he was privileged to see the Lord.
But on the first, again they are together and Thomas with them. Does it not show they expected to see the Lord on that day? Else why were they together as before and Thomas as well? Nor were they disappointed: the Lord appeared, and Thomas believed.
From this we gather two important facts. (1) The disciples had reason to believe that the Lord would appear on the second “first of the week” as He had done on the first; hence they gathered together with Thomas. (2) This was not mere imagination on the part of the disciples, for the Lord honors their expectations and appears among them, thus sanctioning by His own presence the prominence they gave to this day.
(To be continued, D.V.)