THE TIME OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.
I had always supposed that our Saviour rose on the morning of the first day of the week, and had no doubt about finding it plainly recorded that he did. But when I searched for it in the evangelists, I found the accounts very different from what I had supposed. Matthew 28:1, reads, "In the end of the Sabbath." Mark 16:1—"When the Sabbath was passed." Matthew—"As it began to dawn towards the first day of the week." Mark—"Very early in the morning, the first day of the week." Luke 24:1—"Very early in the morning." John 20:1—"Early, when it was yet dark, ... they came to the sepulchre, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus." As this did not tell the exact time of his resurrection, I set myself to see if I could find it by any other passages. On examination, it appeared plain to me, that as he was buried at sun-down, according to that law in Deut. 21:23, to fulfill his own prediction, "So shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," his resurrection must have taken place at the same hour of the day, or rather evening—which would destroy its identity with the first day as now reckoned, and carry back his crucifixion to the fourth day of the week.
All we know of the time of the crucifixion, I found to be, that it was on the fourteenth day of the first month, the preparation day of the Passover The fifteenth day was the Passover Sabbath, a high day with the Jews. (See John 19:14, 31.)
If Jesus was thus crucified on the fourth day of the week, I found that it made a striking correspondence between the event and the prediction in Daniel 9:7.
The reason why the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, I found to be, because it was the first annual national assembly after the crucifixion—the Saviour being put to death at the Passover, and Pentecost being fifty days after. This event, therefore, had nothing to do with the Sabbath.
CHRIST'S APPEARANCES.
The appearances of Christ to his disciples on the first day of the week, are considered as good reasons for sanctifying that day. It is supposed that he so designed them. But these did not appear to me as I expected, when I came to examine them carefully, I knew them as related by the evangelists, but I had them traditionally arranged and associated to suit the arguments for keeping the first day; and when I came to read them with an honest inquiry after the truth, they appeared very different from what I had supposed. I found that there were five appearances of Christ to his disciples on the first day following his resurrection; and neither of them occurred when the disciples were assembled for worship; neither were they accompanied by any such direction.
His first appearance was to the four women, as they returned from the sepulchre, where they had been with spices to embalm the body of Jesus. They were directed by an angel, and by Jesus himself, to go and tell his disciples that Christ was risen, and would meet them on a mountain in Galilee as he had promised them before his crucifixion. There was nothing in this like Sabbath-keeping!
The women having gone into the city, informed Peter and John, who went immediately to the sepulchre; and having looked in and satisfied themselves that the report of the women was true, Peter and John returned to the city. But Mary tarried still at the sepulchre, weeping, when Jesus appeared to her alone. (John 20:16.)
Next he appeared to Peter. (Luke 24:34, 1 Cor. 15:5.)