Chapter 2 - part 3
"Perhaps I
was pretty blunt with him at the start of our consideration of the second
proposition; for I challenged him to produce even one text to prove that
Christ abolished the seventh-day Sabbath at the cross, or that He and His
followers kept Sunday after that in honor of the resurrection. In answer
he read Colossians 2:14-17 about the new moon, a holy day, and sabbath
days being a shadow of things to come, and we should let no man judge us
concerning them; and about blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that
was against us, nailing it to His cross; and also in Ephesians 2:14, 15
where it says He abolished in His flesh the law of commandments contained
in ordinances. But I showed him that on the face of them these
commandments referred to were not the Ten Commandments containing the
Sabbath law, but that they were ordinances, that is, ceremonies, special
sabbath days, ‘beside the sabbaths of the Lord’ (Leviticus 23:37, 38)
and not the weekly Sabbaths of the fourth commandment; that these
ceremonies were types of Christ and pointed forward to the cross, where
the ‘law of Moses’ which after the cross was a ‘yoke of bondage’
(Galatians 5:1-3), because they had served their purpose. But the Ten
Commandments were statements of great principles always true, and did not
deal with shadows of things to come, but the fourth commandment pointed
rather to creation in the past. So it was the laws concerning
circumcision, feasts, and ceremonies that were nailed to the cross, not
the Decalogue. The Ten Commandments form the constitution upon which God’s
government is founded.
"Then I told
him that there was not one text with even a hint of any change of the
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week in honor of the
resurrection. There are only six texts that speak of the first day in
connection with the resurrection (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1;
John 20:1, l9) and all these are glaringly plain that Christ was crucified
and buried on the preparation day before the Sabbath, which all Christians
now recognize as being Friday, that He lay in the grave over the next day
Sabbath, and rose the next day, Sunday; that the first day begins after
the Sabbath ends and that the Sabbath is between Friday and Sunday. And
these gospel records were written from six to sixty-three years after the
resurrection, and not a semblance in them of any change or any honor being
placed on the first day of the week. They emphasized Sunday only because
it was the third day after His death, and He had prophesied that He would
rise the third day; and they wanted to show that that prophecy was
fulfilled.
"Sam said that
Christ always met with His disciples on Sunday after the resurrection. I
pointed out that He met with them only three times when we are told which
day of the week it was. The first was the day of His rising and of course
He would meet with them then to announce and prove His return, and it had
no significance as to a Sabbath; the next time was ‘after eight days,’
which very evidently could not have been the next Sunday, when the week
has only seven days; and the next time was the ascension day forty days
after the resurrection, which a little arithmetic will show could not have
been Sunday.
"As to the
example of the disciples themselves, one time after the resurrection they
went fishing on the day they met with Christ, which could not therefore
have been a rest day recognized by them (John 21:1-9). They met in an
upper room on the very day of the resurrection, but ‘for fear of the
Jews’ and because they all lived there (John 20:19; Acts 1:13); not
to celebrate the resurrection, because at that time they did not believe
that He had risen (Mark 16:9-14).
"Then Sam
turned to Acts 20:7 as his strong text. You remember it says that when the
disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached to them; and this
was the first day of the week. I argued that the breaking of bread meant
nothing special, for it was the custom then to break bread daily (Acts
2:46), and whether this was communion or not, it was not always done on
the first day. And nothing is said about this first day being holy. Paul
met then with them because it happened to be his last day with them, as he
was on a journey. If simply meeting with people for a religious service
makes the day a sabbath, then Paul must have made some of the other week
days sabbaths, for a reading of the account of his journeys shows that he
preached whenever it was convenient (Acts 20:13-18).
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