THE EARLY CHRISTIAN SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Early Christian Sabbath
tragic event and that they would be compelled to flee from the city. He said to them:
“Pray you that your flight be not be not in the winter or on the Sabbath day.” Verse 20.
This was said not because it would be wrong to flee from an enemy on the Sabbath, but
because it would make impossible peaceful, joyful worship on the seventh day.
Therefore, Jesus told His little circle of Christian followers, forty years before the
expected event, to pray that in this terrible time their Sabbath keeping Tight be quietly
and reverently maintained.
The disciples followed the positive example of Jesus Christ Himself, when they
also kept the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. This was strikingly illustrated at the
time of the crucifixion.
The crucifixion took place on Friday, and it was a short time before sundown
when Jesus died. Sundown marked for the people of God the beginning of a new day.
This way of reckoning applied, of course, to- the Sabbath. Leviticus 23:32; Mark 1:32.
This custom of counting the day from sunset prevailed for centuries in the Christian
church, as we shall see a little later, and lingers today in our way of speaking of
“Halloween” and, “Christmas Eve.
At sundown the Sabbath begins. What did the disciples do on the sad week end of
the crucifixion? The record tells us. They hastened to have the beloved body of Jesus
placed in the tomb before the Sabbath, and “rested the Sabbath day according to the
commandment! Luke 23:56.
How could they have done otherwise? Jesus had declared Himself to be the Lord
of the Sabbath. Mark 2:28. He had kept it faithfully even in direct opposition to the un-
Scriptural Sabbath traditions of the Jews. Christ had not abrogated the Sabbath. He had
said not a word nor left a hint that He wished Sunday to be kept. Of course, they “rested
the Sabbath day according to the commandment.”
Paul kept the Sabbath. He kept the Sabbath at Antioch in Pisidia, on his first
missionary journey, and used the first synagogue service which he attended there to tell
the Jews of the crucified and risen Jesus whom He was so faithfully serving. The
following Sabbath a large company of Gentiles came to the synagogue to hear Paul
preach; and when the Jews at this time rejected Paul's message, he declared that from
then on during his sojourn in Antioch he would give his time to preaching to the Gentiles.
Acts 13:14- 16, 40-46. But with these Gentiles he made no first day appointment. There
is not the least inference of any effort on his part to meet with them on the first day of the
week.
At the council at Jerusalem, called to discuss the requirements which should be
made of the Gentiles who were accepting the gospel, the Gentiles were declared to be
exempt from the ancient Hebrew ordinances, which included circumcision, the offering
of sacrifices and other details of the ceremonial law. Acts 15:24-29. It was to be required
of them only that they not use food which had been offered to idols, or that in which the
blood was still present. It was especially emphasized that fornication must absolutely be
avoided, because this was an offense especially common among the pagans. Verse 20.
What an excellent opportunity there was here for the apostles, if they were Sunday
keepers, to point out that these Gentile Christians should observe the day of the sun! But
this is not mentioned. There is no way of accounting for this silence except by the fact
that the disciples were not observers of the first day of the week.
On Paul's second missionary journey he came to the city of Philippi. Here he
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