The Constitutional Amendment: or, The Sunday, the Sabbath, the Change, and Restitution / A discussion between W. H. Littlejohn, Seventh-day Adventist, and the editor of the Christian Statesman

by Wolcott H. Littlejohn

It is admitted on all hands that Christ himself, before his death, and his disciples, up to the time of his resurrection, kept the seventh day holy. It is also admitted on both sides that after the resurrection the apostles and other followers of Christ kept holy one day in seven. While they abounded daily in the work of the Lord, the seventh-day Sabbatarians will concede with us that there was still one day marked out from the rest of the week as sacred time. What day was thus distinguished? Was it the seventh, otherwise known as the Sabbath? Let us see.

The word Sabbath occurs in the New Testament, after the close of the gospel history, twelve times. In two of these instances, viz., Acts 20:7, and 1 Cor. 16:2, the word means “week,” and not the seventh day, as also in a number of instances in the gospels. In Acts 1:12, the word is used to indicate a certain distance. The term is employed in two other places, viz., Acts 13:27, and 15:21, in incidental reference to the service of the Jewish synagogues. In Colossians 2:16, Paul mentions the seventh-day Sabbath only to deny the obligation of its observance. This important passage will be considered farther on. There remain, then, six instances, two of them in regard to one and the same day and meeting, in which the word is found in accounts of gatherings for religious purposes on that day, the seventh of the week. These meetings were as follows: 1. At Antioch, in Pisidia, Acts 13:14; 2. At the same place, the next seventh day, Acts 13:42, 44; 3. At Philippi, Acts 16:13; 4. At Thessalonica, Acts 17:2; and 5. At Corinth, Acts 18:4. At Thessalonica, there were three Sabbaths, and at Corinth, every Sabbath, it may be inferred, for several weeks, thus marked by religious meetings. We are informed that Paul went into the synagogue at Thessalonica on the Sabbath, or seventh day, “as his manner was.” And, accordingly, particularly during his first and second, or his more properly termed, missionary tours, as distinguished from his journeys in revisiting churches already organized, we may unhesitatingly infer that there were other similar meetings on the seventh day, as at Salamis, Acts 13:15; at Iconium, Acts 14:1; and at Ephesus, Acts 18:19, and 19:8.

And here we note the fact that in not a single one of these instances was the meeting a gathering of Christians. In no case was it the assembly of the members of a Christian church for worship. In every case, these meetings on the seventh day were in Jewish places of worship, all in synagogues regularly occupied by Jewish assemblies, except that at Philippi, which was at a proseucha, a Jewish place of prayer out of the city by the river’s side. In every instance, it was a gathering of Jews and Jewish proselytes, with the addition of a greater or lesser number of Gentiles, the sight of a crowd of whom at Antioch, the second day of meeting in their synagogue, excited the jealousy and rage of the Jews. And in these gatherings, in every case, Paul labored as a missionary, glad to avail himself of every opportunity to proclaim the saving truths of the gospel of Christ.

Can any intelligent and candid reader of the inspired records fail to understand the narrative of Paul’s missionary work? He was sent forth “to turn sinners from darkness to light.” As he himself states at Antioch, addressing the Jews: “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you.” His “heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel was that they might be saved.” Accordingly, wherever he went, he was found going to them on the seventh day in their places of worship, not in Christian houses of prayer; meeting with them in their assemblies, not in assemblies of professed followers of Christ. Just as a Christian missionary, in modern times, going to a heathen land, would avail himself, if possible, of the customary assemblies of the residents, whatever day they might keep holy, so Paul and his fellow-missionaries availed themselves of the seventh-day assemblies of the Jews, that from among them, as well as from among the Gentiles, they might gather out an ecclesia—a body of followers of the Lord Jesus, in whom Jew and Gentile should be one.

The question, therefore, still remains to be answered: Which day of the week did the church at Jerusalem, existing at the time of Christ’s ascension, which day did the apostles in their relations with this church, which day did the churches, organized and established by the apostles, and under their example and divine authority, observe as a holy day, a Sabbath to the Lord? In all the references to the seventh day, or Jewish Sabbath, there is not, as we have seen, a particle of evidence that that day was thus observed.

On the other hand, there is positive testimony that the very congregations or churches of Christians, organized at the places where Paul performed missionary labor on the seventh day, ignored that day, and in its stead observed another day of the week as holy time. For example, at Corinth, “as his manner was,” Paul went first to the Jews and preached to them in their synagogue, the word of God, reasoning with them, and persuading them and the Greeks to accept of Christ. Then, when the Jews opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.” So he left the synagogue and the Jews, not the city, and entering into the house of Justus, received Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, with all his house, and many of the Corinthians, as converts into the Christian church. Here we have the church of Corinth. Which day of the week did it observe as the Sabbath of the Lord? the seventh? Though Paul “continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them,” there is not a word more about seventh-day services. This, it is true, would be merely negative, if it were all. But this is not all. In Paul’s direction to this same church, a few years later, he makes clear and certain, what before was probable, that their stated day for religious services was not the seventh, but the first, day of the week. 1 Cor. 16:2. The plain and most explicit teaching of this passage will be fully considered hereafter.

Again, when Paul entered into the synagogue at Ephesus, and reasoned with the Jews (Acts 18:19), and, because he could not tarry long at this time, soon returned again, and met the objections of disputatious Jews for the space of three months (Acts 19:8), his labors as a missionary are said to have been in the synagogue, no doubt on the Sabbath of the Jews, or the seventh day. But once more separating the Christian converts from the unbelieving and blaspheming Jews, and forming the Christian church of Ephesus, he continued there in incessant labors for two years. And now we hear no more of seventh-day assemblies. This, again, may be said to be merely negative, as we hear of no special honor put upon any day. But we have not done with this. Passing the last years of his life in this city of Ephesus, the apostle John writes of “the Lord’s day,” known and observed by the Christians among whom he dwelt. That this holy day of the early church, called the Lord’s day, was not the seventh, but the first, is shown by the most satisfactory historical testimony, which will be adduced in full in its proper connection.

Once more. When Paul came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to him of the Lord (2 Cor. 2:12), whether it was on his first very brief visit (Acts 16:8), or more probably in going over “those parts,” on his way from Ephesus to Macedonia (Acts 20:2), he no doubt, “as his manner was,” went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. A congregation of Christian disciples was formed, and the apostle departed for Greece. After an absence of some months, Paul returns to Troas, and with his companions remains there seven days, departing again on the second day of the week. Whether he departed on the first or second, however, the fact remains that, during his abode of seven days at Troas, there was one seventh day. Do we hear of any religious meeting on that day? Did the disciples then assemble for divine service? Let us hear the record: “We abode seven days. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow.” The seventh day is passed by. The day for the assembling of the Christian disciples is not the Sabbath of the Jews. Another day has taken its place. This most explicit instance at Troas of ignoring the seventh day, and honoring another in its place, as the stated day for the religious services of Christians, abundantly confirms, if confirmation were needed, the conclusions already reached in the instances at Corinth and Ephesus.

Thus the facts of the records of inspired history conclusively prove that the seventh day was not observed by the apostles and early Christians as their sacred day of divine worship, or the Sabbath of the Lord. We might add here that the testimony of all the earliest Christian writers, who received from the apostles and the companions of the apostles the institutions of the Christian church, is full and explicit to the same effect. But we shall hear their evidence for the first day, and thus also against the seventh, in good time.

It will now be in place to consider how apostolic precept corresponds with apostolic example, and that of the churches, in regard to the seventh day. Colossians 2:16, a most important passage, making particular mention of the seventh-day Sabbath, yet singularly overlooked by seventh-day Sabbatarians, now claims our attention for a moment. Judaizing teachers, so busy everywhere throughout the early church, had been at work among the Christian disciples at Colosse. They had been insisting upon the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord. One would think that some of these men had come down to our time and learned to use very good English. We refer these representatives of an ancient, but not honorably mentioned, class for instruction to the apostle’s words to the Colossians: “Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day [literally, of a feast], or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days;” i. e., of yearly, monthly, or weekly Jewish celebrations. We do not wait to examine the parallel passages in Gal. 4:10, and Rom. 14:5, where the obligation of Jewish observances, including the seventh-day Sabbath, is denied, and where, in the latter case, to make the argument even stronger, the toleration of these observances as a weakness is considerately advised. Surely, it is no wonder that seventh-day Sabbatarians seem not to be aware of the existence of these portions of the divine word! It cannot be pleasant to be made to feel that, like the Judaizers of old, they bring themselves under the sharp rebuke of the inspired apostle by judging Christians in respect of the seventh-day Sabbath.