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

Furthermore, every motive of esteem for Christ, as well as that which would actuate them in their desire to instruct subsequent generations in regard to the estimation in which they should hold the day of Christ’s resurrection, demanded that their language should be full and explicit, and that it should state, in so many words, that it was sacred to holy uses. But have they done this? No; the gentleman does not so much as urge that they have. All his emphasis is placed upon the fact that, in speaking of it, they call it the “first day of the week,” instead of the “third after his crucifixion.” He may well say that the distinction between these two forms of expression would be readily “passed over.” Has it come to this, then, that the Holy Spirit, in enforcing important duties upon Christians, is compelled to depart from the natural, clear, and positive statement of facts, and to employ polemical niceties which, we believe, if they have any force at all, can only be discerned by minds whose susceptibilities for refinement are infinitely superior to those of common men and women, and the poor and ignorant to whom the gospel was preached.

If the Sunday had become the “Christian Sabbath,” why not say so? If, indeed, it was on the “Lord’s day” that Jesus arose, why was not this asserted? Or, if the first day of the week was regarded as the Christian Sabbath, why such a studied avoidance of the application of this term to that day? Will the gentleman insist that if the evangelists had stated, in so many words, that the Lord appeared among them after his resurrection on the first “Lord’s day,” or the first “Christian Sabbath,” that it would not have been just what the facts would have warranted, if his theory be correct, and that thereby all dispute, as to which day is the Lord’s day, or Christian Sabbath, would have been forever terminated? Then why endeavor to impress the reader with the thought that there is really any peculiar significance in the form of expression employed, or that it furnishes a strong presumptive argument in favor of first-day sanctity?

The language of the historians is just that which men would use when speaking of a secular day, and not that which they would naturally employ when alluding to a consecrated one. The expression, “first day of the week,” was not only the briefer—as compared to the other, that is, the “third days the crucifixion”—but was definite in every particular. Once more, therefore, we insist that the fact that the inspired evangelists persisted, twenty years after the occurrence of the events recorded, in calling the Sunday “the first day of the week”—as they have done in the six times in which they have mentioned it—if guided at all in the selection of this term by the usage and opinions of the times in which they wrote, have furnished us with a commentary which, if it proves anything at all, proves that the day now regarded as holy was not so esteemed at that time by the disciples generally, else those among them who, as historians, would have been glad to have conferred upon it this honor, would have referred to it in the use of its sacred title, “Sabbath,” or the “Lord’s day.”

As it regards the design of Christ, we take issue with our friend, and offer the following reasons for our confident assertion that he is wrong: 1. His conclusion is not one which is either necessary or obvious. God has shown us his method of making a holy day. That method he has set forth in clear and positive statement, and the observance of such a day he has enforced by explicit command. This being the case, we must infer that he chose that manner because it was the best. Hence we should naturally conclude that when he wished to change the day of his choice, once enforced by a law still binding, he would make known his mind in a manner so clear and impressive that there could be no room for doubt. This, however, in the action of Christ alluded to, is far from being the case, because the meeting of the Lord with the apostles did not necessarily affect the nature of the time on which it occurred. Instance the fact heretofore cited, that he met with them on a fishing day (John chap. 21), and again on Thursday, the day of the ascension, without in any way changing the character of those days, as all will admit. Now, if this could be true of those two days, might it not also be true of the first day of the week? 2. Because, as we have seen, there is not the slightest evidence that the apostles inferred that it was the intention of Christ to produce the impression claimed. For, had this been the case, their convictions must have found expression for our benefit. 3. Because, manifestly, the conversation of Christ is given, so far as it inculcated any duty not elsewhere expressed; and in his words there is no allusion to any design on his part to teach them that the time on which they were assembled was holy. 4. Because there is a sufficient reason found for the meeting of Christ with the apostles on these two occasions, in his desire to establish them in the conviction of his resurrection, and to instruct them in regard to future action.

Before passing from this branch of the subject, we must be allowed to express our surprise that, in the anxiety of our friend to make out his case, he has made a declaration which we think he would not have done had he been more deliberate in his selection of facts. He says, in speaking of John 20:26—the second and only additional instance in which, after the first, he claims that Christ met with the apostles on the first day of the week—as follows: “This interval of eight days, from and including the resurrection day, brings us, according to the common mode of reckoning, and as no one is disposed to dispute, to the first day of the next week.” To this we reply that, if he means to be understood, by this statement, that there is no dispute as to whether the second gathering under consideration did occur just one week after the first, he mistakes greatly. It is by no means true that this is a matter about which there is no difference of opinion. In order to show the reader that we are right in this, we quote the following from many testimonies which might be introduced: “‘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. ‘After eight days,’ most naturally implies the ninth or tenth day; 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.” In a note on the above remarks, the same author says “Those who were to come before God from Sabbath to Sabbath to minister in his temple, were said to come ‘after seven days.’ 1 Chron. 9:25; 2 Kings 11:5.”—Hist. of Sabbath, by J. H. Andrews, p. 148.

Right here, also, is the proper place to give attention to the elaborate argument which is made to produce upon the mind of the reader the impression that the presence of Christ, in the two instances mentioned, was expressly designed for the purpose of distinguishing the two first-days (?) upon which he manifested himself to his disciples. We should not do justice to our opponent, should we refuse to grant him credit for making a doubtful circumstance go as far in his favor as it were possible for any man to do. What he has said is both poetic and pathetic. Poetic, because it is purely a figment of his own imagination. Pathetic, because the spectacle here brought to view is one which appeals most forcibly to the sympathies of the generous reader. Who would not commiserate the condition of men who, for six weary days, sat in public assembly, waiting the momentary expected advent of their Lord? Who would not rejoice when finally he appeared in their midst, even if it were on the first day of the week? How natural, too, it would be for the reader, having his sympathies thus aroused, to follow him who has shown an art, at least dramatic, in playing upon their feelings, to the conclusion to which he springs—not by the route of logical deduction—but by that of a more fascinating sentimentalism.

But before he does this, let us descend for a moment from the hights of fancy to the lower grounds of prosaic fact. It strikes us that the gentleman will discover that he has paid too high a price for what he has obtained. Where did he learn that they assembled on the six days in question? Assuredly not from the record, for that is silent upon this point. Nay, more; he does not himself claim that he has any written authority for it, but simply says that he “believes” so and so, and then proceeds to his deductions. Well, with this understanding of the matter, and knowing that it is merely an inference of the writer, let us follow his conclusions to their legitimate consequences. Having done this, we perceive, 1. That at last we have reached a whole week, every day of which was one of religious meetings, and yet not one word recorded in regard to the gatherings which occurred on six out of the seven days of the week. This being true by his own concession, what has become of that argument in which he indulged so largely in his effort to prove that because there was no account of a meeting of Christians on the Sabbath, they were consequently not in the habit of meeting on that day? Does it not fall to the ground, utterly emptied of all its force, if it ever had any? 2. Where, now, is his oft-repeated declaration that there is no account of the meeting of any of the apostles with a Christian church on the Sabbath, and the conclusion therefrom, that they therefore held none? Here is the admission of the writer himself, that the apostles and the church at Jerusalem did meet on at least one seventh day after the resurrection of Christ. 3. What has become of the instructive lesson which Christ imparted to his followers on the evening of the day of his resurrection? Has it not been insisted that that visit was made for the especial purpose of teaching, them, by example, and by meeting with them, that the day on which it occurred was holy time? If we have rightly apprehended the logic of our opponent, this was the precise moral which our Lord designed to convey by his manifestation on that occasion. How clear it is that such a conviction has rested upon the mind of the writer, and how often he has repeated it.

But how was it with the apostles? Now, certainly, they were not more obtuse than we are. Assuredly, they knew as much about the will and purpose of Christ in meeting with them the first time, as we do now. Did they then infer that Christ met with them expressly for the purpose, not of honoring by positive precept, but by the fact of his assembling with them, the day on which that assembly occurred? If so, why should they, according to the view we are considering, have gathered themselves together every day for the whole subsequent week, expecting his presence? Would they not have discovered that such presence, under such circumstances, would have utterly nullified the moral lesson of the first visit, since it would not afterwards be true that the first day of the week was the only one which he had thus distinguished, thereby marking it out from the rest of the week?

So much for the consequences which would necessarily follow, had that occurred which the writer says he “believes” took place. But, fortunately, or unfortunately for him, the whole thing is a myth from beginning to end. The only force which it posseses lies in the assumed fact that it brings together eight meetings on consecutive days, on two of which, and two only, the Lord met with his followers, those two being first days of the weeks to which they belonged. Therefore, before the statement can possess any argumentative power, we must first grant him the privilege of assuming that six of these meetings occurred when there is not a scintilla of evidence in the sacred narrative to favor his view.

That must be a desperate cause indeed which compels its advocates to such a resort to make out their case. Nevertheless, if the conception has accomplished nothing more, it has furnished us a key by which we have been able to unlock the secret conviction of the writer, and by that means, we learn that he does not himself believe either that Christ told his disciples on the day of the resurrection that that was holy time; or that they had decided in their own minds that his visit necessarily pointed out this fact; or that the meeting of a Christian church on a secular day proves that they regarded that day as sacred; or that it is necessary to suppose that any church disregarded the Sabbath, simply because there is no historic mention of their observance of it. This being true, we hope from this time forward that we shall see a line of argument pursued which will be consistent with the admissions inadvertently made above.