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

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.

Now let it be supposed that the crucifixion answered to the ancient Passover, and that the apostles proceeded to the determination of the time when the Pentecost would be reached, according to the theory of the Karaites. The first thing which would have been necessary was, the weekly Sabbath, which immediately followed the crucifixion of Christ. Having found it, they would have numbered seven Sabbaths, and have decided that the day immediately following the last of these answered to the feast. But unfortunately for them they would have discovered—had they believed in the modern doctrine that the law of the Sabbath was nailed to the cross, Col. 2:16(?)—that they were deprived of a starting point; for the Sabbath institution is a thing of commandment. Take away the commandment, and the institution is gone. Therefore, as the cross had accomplished its work, and had been taken down on Friday, God had removed the landmark from which they were commanded to measure the time which should bring them to the Pentecost at the very period when they needed it most. In reality, there was left them no Sabbath which answered to the one in Leviticus.

Should it be replied, however, that the Sabbath, though gone in fact, existed nevertheless in name, it might be responded that this would indeed be an anomalous condition of things. Mark it: it is not the incidental mention, by its proper name, of an institution which had ceased to be, which we are considering; but it is the deliberate action of that God who knows the end from the beginning, in compelling the disciples to treat the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, in order to the decision of an important fact; for eight weeks after, as is claimed, it had lost its Sabbatic character.

Again; should it be urged, as a means of escape from the embarrassments of the situation, that God did not actually require them to count the seventh day as the Sabbath, since there was really no day of Pentecost which they were obliged to keep on the year of our Lord’s crucifixion, we answer, Very good. Then, of course, we shall hear nothing hereafter from the argument for Sunday sanctity which is based upon the hypothesis that the day of Pentecost fell on the first day of the week in the year in question, since it will have been admitted that there was no Pentecost that year, and consequently that it could not properly be said to have fallen upon any day.

Once more; should it be insisted that though the Pentecostal feast was not binding in the year of our Lord 30, or thereabout, but that the antitype of the feast was the thing of importance, then, in reply, it may be said that God rendered it necessary for them, in order to locate that antitype according to the Karaite view, to count the Sabbath which followed the crucifixion as the Sabbath of emotion, a thing which certainly will be very difficult of explanation by those who can speak as becomingly of the providence of God as did the gentleman in the article which is passing under review.

Finally, we repeat, therefore, that, if indeed there were a legal Pentecost this side of the death of our Lord, and if the Karaite system for locating it were the right one, then the seventh day which followed the death of Christ was distinguished by three very significant facts. 1. It was honored by the women (and therefore by the disciples) by their resting upon it. 2. Luke, in speaking of it thirty years subsequent to its occurrence, mentions it as the Sabbath, “according to the commandment.” 3. God made it necessary that the whole Jewish nation should keep the Pentecostal feast fifty days after the crucifixion of the Lord; and, in doing so, that they should count the seventh day of the week as still continuing to be the Sabbath.

In passing to the last branch of the subject, which will be treated in this article, we invite the reader to note the following facts, as we shall have occasion to employ them hereafter: 1. That the writer proceeds with his reasoning upon the hypothesis that the months at the time of the crucifixion were Jewish months, commencing with the new moon. 2. That the days were Jewish days, commencing and ending with the setting of the sun. These points we have previously urged, and are happy to see that they are conceded as being correct.

In conclusion, we turn our attention to the remaining feature of the communication in the Statesman, i. e., that portion of the article which relates to the real matter in dispute, namely—granting, for the sake of argument, that the first day of the week was the one on which the Pentecost fell in the year under consideration—whether that fact necessarily affected the character of that day so as to mark it out as one which God had chosen as peculiarly his own. For, be it remembered, that—though the whole argument which has been made respecting the identity of those two days should be conceded—we should then simply be prepared to decide whether the facts agreed upon would prove what is claimed, or not.

We ask, therefore, the candid attention of all to the use which has been made of the elaborate argument which we have been carefully considering, point by point. We would naturally have expected—if the gentleman felt that he had proved what he desired to, namely, that the Pentecost fell upon the first day of the week—that the real sinews of a masterly logic would have been discovered in an effort to show that it followed of necessity that it must therefore have been holy time. But has he done this? Or, in other words, if he has, in what manner has he brought it about? Has it been by fair logical deduction? We believe that there are very few who will insist that he has attempted such a deduction, with any measure of success, at the very point where it should have been expected most.