The Scriptures declare that “with God all things are possible;” yet this statement is limited by the declaration that God cannot lie.[311] Does the change of the Sabbath pertain to those things that are possible with God, or is it excluded by that important limitation, God cannot lie? The Law-giver is the God of truth, and his law is the truth.[312] Whether it would still remain the truth if changed to something else, and whether the Law-giver would still continue to be the God of truth after he had thus changed it, remains to be seen. The fourth commandment, which is affirmed to have been changed, is thus expressed:—
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.... The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
If now we insert “first day” in place of the seventh, we shall bring the matter to a test:—
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.... The first day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the first day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
This changes the truth of God into a lie;[313] for it is false that God rested upon the first day of the week and blessed and hallowed it. Nor is it possible to change the rest-day of the Creator from that day on which he rested to one of the six days on which he did not rest.[314] To change a part of the commandment, and to leave the rest unchanged, will not therefore answer, as the truth which is left is still sufficient to expose the falsehood which is inserted. A more radical change is needed, like the following:—
“Remember the Christian Sabbath, to keep it holy. The first day is the Sabbath of the Lord Jesus Christ. For on that day he arose from the dead; wherefore he blessed the first day of the week, and hallowed it.”
After such a change, no part of the original Sabbatic institution remains. Not only is the rest-day of the Lord left out, but even the reasons on which the fourth commandment is based are of necessity omitted also. But does such an edition of the fourth commandment as this exist? Not in the Bible, certainly. Is it true that such titles as these are applied to the first day? Never, in the Holy Scriptures. Did the Law-giver bless and hallow that day? Most assuredly not. He did not even take the name of it into his lips. Such a change of the fourth commandment on the part of the God of truth is impossible; for it not merely affirms that which is false and denies that which is true, but it turns the truth of God itself into a lie. It is simply the act of setting up a rival to the Sabbath of the Lord, which, having neither sacredness nor authority of its own, has contrived to absorb that of the Bible Sabbath itself. Such is the foundation of the first-day Sabbath. The texts which are employed in rearing the institution upon this foundation will be noticed in their proper order and place. Several of these texts properly pertain to this chapter:—
“And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.”[315]
It is not asserted that on this occasion our Lord hallowed the first day of the week; for that act is affirmed to date from the resurrection itself on the authority of the texts already quoted. But the sacredness of the first day being assumed as the foundation, this text furnishes the first stone for the superstructure; the first pillar in the first-day temple. The argument drawn from it may be thus stated: Jesus selected this day as the one in which to manifest himself to his disciples; and by this act strongly attested his regard for the day. But it is no small defect in this argument that his next meeting with them was on a fishing occasion,[316] and his last and most important manifestation, when he ascended into Heaven, was upon Thursday.[317] The act of the Saviour in meeting with his disciples must therefore be yielded as insufficient of itself to show that any day is sacred; for it would otherwise prove the sacredness of several of the working days. But a still more serious defect in this argument is found in the fact that this meeting of Jesus with his disciples does not appear to have been upon the first day of the week. It was “after eight days” from the previous meeting of Jesus and the disciples, which, coming at the very close of the resurrection day, could not but have extended into the second day of the week.[318] “After eight days” from this meeting, if made to signify only one week, necessarily carries us to the second day of the week. But a different expression is used by the Spirit of inspiration when simply one week is intended. “After seven days” is the chosen term of the Holy Spirit when designating just one week.[319] “After eight days” most naturally implies the ninth or tenth day;[320] but allowing it to mean the eighth day, it fails to prove that this appearance of the Saviour was upon the first day of the week. To sum up the argument: The first meeting of Jesus with his disciples in the evening at the close of the first day of the week was mainly if not wholly upon the second day of the week;[321] the second meeting could not have been earlier in the week than the second or third day, and the day seems to have been selected simply because that Thomas was present; the third meeting was upon a fishing occasion; and the fourth, was upon Thursday, when he ascended into Heaven. The argument for first-day sacredness drawn from this text is eminently fitted to the foundation of that sacredness already examined; and the institution of the first-day Sabbath itself, unless formed of more substantial frame-work than enters into its foundation, is at best only a castle in the air.
The text which next enters into the fabric of first-day sacredness is the following:—