to decide which day of the week was looked upon as peculiarly sacred at
the time the gospels were written, provided the gentleman is _right_ in
supposing that the historians used language with reference to its
acceptance when they wrote, instead of what it meant when the events,
which they record, transpired. We believe the verdict will not be long
delayed. They call the seventh day “the Sabbath of the commandment.”
That commandment, it is conceded, is still binding. If it reads the same
now that it did then, the day which was the Sabbath at that time,
according to that commandment, is still the Sabbath according to the
same commandment. But if that commandment has been changed, we once more
challenge the religious world to furnish us a copy of it as it now
reads. Until they do so, we shall continue to observe the Sabbath upon
which the devout women rested; on which our Lord himself rested in the
tomb from his labors; and which four inspired men, twenty years later,
more or less, still persisted in calling “_the_ Sabbath.”
STATESMAN’S REPLY.
ARTICLE FOUR.
ARGUMENT FOR THE FIRST-DAY SABBATH FROM THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON
THE DAY OF PENTECOST.
The testimony brought forward in our last number from the Gospels for
the first-day Sabbath finds abundant confirmation in other portions of
the New-Testament Scriptures. We shall confine ourselves in this article
to the argument drawn from the beginning of the second chapter of the
Acts: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with
one accord in one place.” There has been so much discussion of this
passage that a somewhat careful consideration of it may be of interest
in itself, as well as from its important connection with the subject now
specially in hand. In regard to it, we note:
1. The day of the outpouring of the Spirit was the day of Pentecost—not
some day preceding or following. The correct rendering of the original
words is not, as Lightfoot gives it, “when the day of Pentecost had
passed,” nor as Hitzig would have it, “as the day of Pentecost was
approaching its fulfillment;” but, “while the day of Pentecost was being
fulfilled;” that is, during the progress of that particular day, or, as
our authorized English version has it, “when the day of Pentecost was
fully come.”
2. This day of Pentecost, on which the Holy Spirit was given, was the
first day of the week. A number of eminent authorities, chief among whom
is the chronologist Wieseler, compute it to have been the seventh. This
question hinges upon that of the day of the Lord’s death. It is almost
universally admitted that Christ was crucified on Friday. But it is
disputed whether that Friday was the fourteenth or the fifteenth of
Nisan. From Leviticus 23:15, 16, we learn that Pentecost, signifying
literally the fiftieth, was counted from the second day of unleavened
bread. The paschal lamb was killed at the close of the fourteenth day of
the month Abib or Nisan, and the next day, the fifteenth, was the first
day of unleavened bread. This day was regarded as a holy Sabbath; and
from the morrow following, that is, from the sixteenth of Nisan, fifty
days were to be reckoned to determine the day of Pentecost.
Wieseler contends that the Lord was crucified on the fifteenth of
Nisan—the first day of unleavened bread. The sixteenth of the month
would therefore fall on the seventh day of the week, and fifty days,
reckoned from and including this, according to the manner of the Jews,
would fix the day of Pentecost on the Jewish Sabbath. It is interesting
to observe that many who agree with Wieseler in regarding the Friday of
Christ’s crucifixion as the fifteenth of Nisan, still reckon the fifty
days so as to make Pentecost fall on the first day of the week.
Prominent among these chronologists is Canon Wordsworth.
In all frankness, we would admit that Wordsworth’s reckoning will not
hold. If the Friday on which the Lord was crucified was the fifteenth of
Nisan, and if that day was observed as the first day of unleavened bread
so that the specified fifty days would be reckoned from the following
day, then Pentecost must have occurred on the seventh day of the week.
Others of our ablest scholars, such as Greswell, Elliott, and Schaff,
maintain that the day on which our Lord was crucified was the fourteenth
of Nisan. An exhaustive discussion of this whole question would be out
of place in these columns. We give a brief, and we think conclusive,
argument in favor of the view that the Friday of our Lord’s death was
the fourteenth of Nisan, and that therefore the fifteenth Nisan, or
first day of unleavened bread, coincided with the Jewish Sabbath. The
reasons in favor of this view are the following:—
(1.) The language of John, chap. 18:28, intimates clearly that the Jews
had not, on the morning of Friday, yet partaken of the passover. Friday
could not therefore have been the fifteenth of Nisan.
(2.) The same day, Friday, John states that “it was the preparation of
the passover.” (Chap. 19:14.) It seems next to impossible to understand
this expression in any other way than as referring to that day, Friday,
as the day of preparation for Passover observance, or, in other words,
as the day preceding the fifteenth Nisan.
(3.) John’s statement, in chap. 19:31, that the Sabbath following the
day of crucifixion was “a high day,” admits of no easy or natural
explanation except that of the coincidence of the first day of
unleavened bread, or the fifteenth Nisan, with the seventh-day Sabbath.
(4.) The anti-typical character of Christ, as the Paschal Lamb of God
and the true Passover Sacrifice (John 1:29, 36; 1 Cor. 5:7), would lead
us to expect that the very day and hour of his death would correspond
with the time of the killing of the typical Passover lamb. If it be
urged that Christ himself, with his disciples, in obeying the
requirements of the law, killed the Passover on the evening of the
fourteenth, and that the Synoptical Gospels intimate this, it may be
replied that such an interpretation of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is not
required, and that the exceeding difficulty, not to say impossibility,
of harmonizing it with the statements already quoted from John, is quite
decisive against it. It is much easier to interpret the Synoptists in
the light of John’s Gospel. In this chapter, 13:1, we are informed of a
supper _before_ the passover. That this was the same supper spoken of by
the Synoptists, though one day before the usual time, in order that the
true Passover lamb might be put to death at the time appointed, appears
from the peculiar nature of the message sent by chosen apostle, to the
“good man of the house”—a message of special direction, pointing out
something of an unusual character. (See Matthew 28:18; Mark 14:14; and
Luke 22:11.) There are also in the Synoptical Gospels a number of
statements showing that the Friday on which our Lord was crucified was
not marked by the Sabbatic sacredness belonging to the first day of
unleavened bread. (See Matthew 27:59; Mark 15:42, 46; Luke 23:56.) This
seems to be the easiest and most natural way of harmonizing the apparent
discrepancies between the Synoptists and John.
(5.) Wieseler’s own chronological tables may be used against him to show
that the Friday of our Lord’s crucifixion was the fourteenth of Nisan.
We would speak with becoming diffidence, in any attempt to make out a
system of chronology for the events recorded in Scripture. There are,
however, in Wieseler’s elaborate book, tables independently proved to be
accurate. By them, admitting the year of our Lord’s crucifixion to have
been A. D. 30, which is regarded by most chronologists as highly
probable, and admitting also that the day was Friday, which will not be
disputed, it is shown, beyond all doubt, that Christ died on the
fourteenth of Nisan, and must have eaten the passover with his disciples
on the first hours of that day, the preceding evening. The tables
referred to show, by the most minute and accurate calculations, that in
the year, A. D. 30, the new moon for the month Nisan appeared on
Wednesday, the next to the last day of the preceding month,
corresponding to March 22, at eight minutes past eight o’clock in the
evening. Hence, it would follow that the first day of Nisan commenced on
Friday evening, March 24, corresponding, as to daylight, with Saturday,
March 25; of course, the Friday of the next week, would be the seventh
Nisan, and the same day, the following week, the fourteenth. Thus,
according to Wieseler’s own tables, Friday of the week of our Lord’s
passion is made out to be the fourteenth of Nisan. The fifteenth of
Nisan, then, or the first day of unleavened bread, coincided at that
time with the seventh day of the week, or the Jewish Sabbath; and
reckoning fifty days from the morrow, that day included, we find
Pentecost falling on the first day of the eighth week following our
Lord’s crucifixion.
So clear and emphatic is the testimony of the primitive church to this
fact that many who hold that the Friday of Christ’s death was the
fifteenth Nisan still do so in cordial indorsement of that fact. They
reconcile the apparent difference between John and the Synoptists by
supposing that the Jewish authorities, probably because of the
crucifixion, or for some other reason, did not observe the Passover at
the usual time, but, passing by the fifteenth Nisan, in reality kept the
sixteenth in its place; and thus counting the fifty days from the
seventeenth of the month, instead of the sixteenth, Pentecost would fall
on the first day of the week.
It is worth mentioning, before we pass on, that the Karaite Jews, like
the Sadducces before them, understand the word “Sabbath” in Leviticus
23:11, 15, 16, to mean, not the first day of unleavened bread, which was
kept as a Sabbath, on whatever day of the week it might fall, but the
seventh day of the week, the regular weekly Sabbath of the Jews.
According to this understanding, the fifty days would always be reckoned
from the morrow after the seventh day, and Pentecost would always fall
on the first day of the week.
Having thus been at some pains to establish the fundamental position in
this argument a position to which scholars generally are coming with
constantly increasing unanimity, we need not dwell long upon the
manifest application of what has been proven. The facts here, after
Christ’s ascension, are full of significance, as we have seen the facts
to be concerning the days just succeeding his resurrection. After the
Lord’s ascension, his disciples abode in Jerusalem, awaiting the
promised gift of the Spirit. Many days passed by, including two seventh
days, and still no fulfillment of the promise. On the first day of the
second week after the ascension, the disciples were all with one accord
in one place. Once more, the day which the Lord had singled out and
honored is specially honored by the plentiful effusion of the Spirit of
God. And thus the day which Christ taught his disciples to regard with
special sacredness, by repeatedly appearing to them in their collective
gatherings, and blessing them, is even more clearly and significantly
marked out from the other days of the week by this most marvelous
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
If it be objected that it was the Jewish festival, and not the first day
of the week, that was honored, it is readily replied that there is no
trace of the services of the Jewish festival on that blessed day. The
Holy Ghost was given, not to persons observing Jewish ordinances and
keeping the Pentecost of the old dispensation with a new meat-offering
and first-fruits. He was given to Christian disciples met on the
Christian’s honored day; and the disciples who on that day had received
important spiritual instructions from the Lord just after his
resurrection, and who now, on the same day, received the promised
Spirit, begin the true work of the Christian Sabbath by preaching the
gospel of salvation, and three thousand souls are added to the church of
Christ.
The objection, on the score that Pentecost only happened to fall on the
first day that year, is unworthy of any one who believes that “not a
sparrow falls to the ground, without our Heavenly Father’s notice.” It
has been admitted that if the view of the Karaite Jews were true, and
Pentecost occurred every year on the first day of the week, then would
there be a strong argument for the first-day Sabbath in the
pre-arrangements of God’s providence. But to our mind, the argument from
the pre-arrangement of providence is stronger on the other and better
interpretation of Leviticus 23:11, 15, 16. He who in infinite wisdom
arranged everything from the beginning, so ordered all events connected
with Christ’s death, as to make the day of Pentecost coincide with the
Christian Sabbath, and then gathered to himself, not the first-fruits of
the fields of grain, but three thousand immortal souls, the first-fruits
of the ingathering of the spiritual fields white to the harvest—the
harvest of all the Gentile nations yet to be brought into the church of
Christ, with the restoration of the covenant people of old. This is a
Pentecost worthy of the church of Him who died for sinners of every
race, and of the honored day which commemorates his rising from the
dead.
A REJOINDER.
“ARGUMENT FOR THE FIRST-DAY SABBATH FROM THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON
THE DAY OF PENTECOST.”
It is always a source of satisfaction to one, in examining opinions from
which he is compelled to differ, to feel that the presentation of them
which he is considering is the best which could be made under the
circumstances. With pleasure, therefore, we recognize the manifest
tokens of research and erudition on the part of the author of the views
presented in the columns of the _Statesman_, in the communication
entitled, “Argument for the first-day Sabbath from the gift of the Holy
Spirit on the day of Pentecost.” We do not flatter ourselves, however,
that all which has been said in that article was for our benefit. It is
not a little remarkable that three-fourths of its contents are devoted
to the settlement of a point, which—while indeed it affects the question
at issue—is not one upon which we bestowed many words, having preferred
to consider, for the sake of argument, that the Pentecost did, on the
year of our Lord’s crucifixion, fall upon the first day of the week; and
then, having done this, to prove that this coincidence in no way
affected, necessarily, the nature of that day.
Nevertheless, we must beg leave here to express our gratitude that,
notwithstanding the concession in question, the readers of the
_Statesman_ are at last instructed by an abler pen than our own in
reference to the diversity of opinion which exists among the learned as
to whether, indeed, it is safe to conclude that the Sunday, to the
exclusion of the Sabbath, was the day upon which the Holy Spirit
descended upon the apostles. Be it remembered, also, that the learned
men who stand as the advocates of the seventh day as the one which God
thus honored were not observers of that day as the Sabbath. All the
authorities quoted are men who, if they regarded any Sabbath at all,
gave their preference to the first, and not to the last, day of the
week. This being the case, they certainly cannot be charged with any
bias in favor of the creation Sabbath. Not only so, but all their
predilections were doubtless against that day, and favorable to its
rival. Hence we see that when, under these circumstances, it is admitted
that such distinguished men as Lightfoot, Weiseler, and Hitzig, have
agreed that the last day of the week was the one on which the Pentecost
occurred at the time in question, they did so—not in the interest of
preconceived notions, nor for the purpose of bolstering up a theory
which was in desperate need of help—but because there was, to their
minds, at least, much which compelled a conclusion they would gladly
have avoided.
Right here, also, in order to widen the breach in the wall of evidence,
we beg leave to act in harmony with the plan pursued by the writer, and
to present a note from the pen of one no less distinguished than
Professor Hackett, which will make it manifest beyond dispute that the
scholars who at the present time sympathize with those cited above, who
regard the seventh day of the week and not the first as having been the
day of the Pentecost, are both numerous and celebrated: “It is generally
supposed that this Pentecost, signalized by the outpouring of the
Spirit, fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday.” Quoted in “Hist. of
Sab.,” by J. N. A., page 150. Let the reader bear in mind that we are
not assuming to decide between these long lines of doctors who differ so
widely upon a very important point, as regarded by some; but that our
purpose is simply to call attention to the fact of this discrepancy, and
to show its bearing upon the subject under discussion.
The first query which should be propounded, therefore, is this: Has God
ever declared that the day of the Pentecost, which we are trying to
locate, was identical with the first day of the week? The answer is in
the negative. There is not one word in the text (Acts 2:1, 2), or in the
Testament, in regard to the day of the week on which these events
occurred. It is simply stated that they took place “when the day of
Pentecost was fully come,” How remarkable, if the object was not to
honor a feast which occurred annually, but especially for the purpose of
distinguishing the first day of the week! Before, however, that day
could be illustrated by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon it, it
must first he decided—and that, too, from Bible evidence—that such
outpouring did occur on the day specified. Can this be done? We appeal
for a response to the average Christian men and women of this time. Tell
me, after having read the three-column argument of the gentleman, has
not the effect of what he has said been to unsettle, rather than to
establish, your convictions upon the point before our minds? If never
before, is it not now true that you feel somewhat shaken in regard to
the identity of the Sunday with the Pentecost, on the year of the
crucifixion? In view of what has been written, would you undertake to
establish your faith from any deduction which you yourself could make
from plain Scripture declarations? Is it not true that your opinion in
the promises depends entirely upon the faith of the one or the other
class of scholars who have ranged themselves on both sides of this
subject? Has the religion of Jesus Christ then changed? Is it no longer
true that its great and important practical truths are withheld “from
the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes”? Has God left the
important question of first-day sanctity, not upon the solid basis of
explicit command, but upon the doubtful inference which is to be derived
from certain transactions which occurred on a certain day, and then left
the day of their occurrence to occupy a position in the week so doubtful
that the most learned of those who had a desire to keep it should be
honestly divided in opinion as to which day it was? We believe not. To
our mind, it is simple presumption to intimate that God—who is not
willing that any should perish, and who has said that he will do nothing
but he will reveal it to his servants the prophets—should deal with his
creatures in a manner at once so indirect and so obscure.
Having seen that there is a wide divergence of views among the very men
who are the observers of the modern Sunday, in regard to its claims to
distinction on the score of its having been first honored by the
outpouring of the Spirit on the fiftieth day after the resurrection, let
us look for a moment at the situation with reference to the possible
effect upon the seventh day, of the logic employed. Taking it for
granted that our friends would not fly from their favorite deduction
provided it should prove to be true that they are mistaken in regard to
the time of the Pentecost, let us concede, for the time being, that the
long line of celebrities, headed by such men as Lightfoot, Weiseler, and
Hitzig, were right in arguing that Saturday, and not Sunday, was the day
on which the great Jewish festival occurred; then, beyond all dispute,
it must be conceded by our opponents that this was but another effort on
the part of Jehovah to illustrate, for the benefit of succeeding
generations, the day which he had previously made memorable by his
resting, his blessing, and his sanctification. In other words, with this
view of the design of the outpouring of the Spirit, the effect upon the
ancient Sabbath would be the same as it is now claimed to have been upon
the first day of the week. The point, therefore, of the identity of the
days is to _them_ a _vital_ one. If they are wrong in this, they are
wrong in all. We appeal to them, therefore, in view of the infinite
consequences which hang upon the proper celebration of the right
Sabbath, to at least make their logic so plain that it will be accepted
by men of their own faith, before they speak of its strength with great
assumption of confidence. Before any person has a right to employ the
events which transpired at the time of the Pentecostal outpouring of the
Spirit in the interest of Sunday sanctity, he must be able to solve, at
least to the satisfaction of his own mind, all the difficulties which
complicate this question. As God has never seen fit to say that the
Jewish feast, at the time under consideration, transpired on the first
day of the week, he must be able to establish that proposition
independently of an explicit _thus saith the Lord_.
There are two ways by which this may be attempted. (1.) By proving that
the Pentecost always took place on the first day of the week; or, (2.)
By demonstrating that Christ was crucified on Friday, the fourteenth day
of Nisan, and that consequently the Pentecost must have fallen upon a
Sunday following, and separated from that day by about fifty days. But,
so far as the first proposition is concerned, which would be by far the
easier of demonstration, if it were true—should the reader be inclined
to favor it—he must convince himself that he could establish it against
the conviction and the learning of the writer in question; for he
rejects it as being untenable. Should he therefore turn to the second,
then, as remarked above, he must be able to prove, not merely that
Christ died on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nisan, but that
likewise that fourteenth day of the month was also the sixth day of the
week. When we say that this will be a task which few minds are capable
of performing, and from which those who are best informed will the most
readily turn away, We but assert what the writer in question has very
distinctly shadowed forth in the facile manner in which he disposes of
the obscurity of the statements in the three Synoptical Gospels by
arbitrarily deciding that they must be interpreted by that of John.
What the real object of the writer was in making the statement that the
Karaites and the Sadducees hold to the first theory stated above, we are
at a loss to decide, since he himself concludes that they were wrong in
their hypothesis. But let us suppose for a moment that they were right,
and that the Pentecost always followed the weekly Sabbath; would that
prove that it occurred on Sunday? We answer, Yes. But would it prove
that Sunday was therefore holy time? We answer, No; it would not so much
as touch this independent question. Or rather, it should be said, if it
affected it at all, it would increase the strength of the seventh-day
Sabbath argument. Do you ask, How? We answer that, according to their
theory, you must first have a weekly Sabbath before you could decide
when you had reached the Pentecost Sunday. The direction in Leviticus
was, that they should count to themselves seven Sabbaths from the day
that they brought the sheaf of the wave-offering, which would bring them
to the feast in question.