THE EARLY CHRISTIAN SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Early Christian Sabbath
and again afterward (Matthew 28:18). Later, apparently that day, Peter saw Him. 1
Corinthians 15:5. Late in the day two of the disciples of Jesus, not of the twelve, were
walking from Jerusalem back to their home village of Emmaus, about seven and a half
miles from Jerusalem. As these men walked along, talking about Christ's death and the
rumors concerning His “disappearance” from the tomb, they were joined by a third
person, whom they did not then recognize. He discussed with them the prophecies of the
Old Testament concerning the Messiah. He pointed out from prophecy the kind of
Messiah the Jews should have been expecting. Luke 24:25-27. Arriving at their home in
Emmaus, the two disciples invited the stranger to have supper with them. As they sat
down to eat, and the visitor offered thanks, they recognized Him as their risen Master.
Immediately He withdrew from them. They set out at once to tell the disciples that they
had actually been with the risen Jesus. They found their companions in an upper room,
“assembled for fear of the Jews.” John 20:19. By the time the two disciples arrived, it
was evening, evidently after sundown of the first day of the week. Technically, according
to current reckoning, it was the “eve,” or beginning, of the second day of the week. To
save confusion in the record, and in reference to the pressing events of the day just
closing, it is called “the same day at evening, being the first day of the week!'
While these two men told of their conversation with Jesus, Christ Himself
appeared in the midst of the disciples, and talked with them. It must be noted definitely
that here was no divine appointment. It was not a meeting for worship. It was not an
observance of the first day of the week; nor the institution of first-day sanctity. It
furnishes no precedent for Sunday observance. The disciples were gathered there 1or fear
of the Jews,” not expecting to see Christ, and not even yet believing that He had risen.
They were not yet ready to believe the glorious fact of the resurrection. In fact, a week
later, when Jesus met with His disciples again, Thomas was still unready to admit his
belief that Jesus had risen, and did not do so until Jesus addressed Himself to him
individually and showed Thomas His wounded hands and side.
It was evidently for Thomas's sake that Jesus came to the disciples at this time. It
certainly was not to make the day of the sun a sacred day. Jesus gave not the slightest
intimation that it was His intention to set aside the first day of the week for special
observance. What is more,-and note this,-John, who wrote this Gospel some sixty years
after the event ' , when Christianity had already begun to spread and crystallize its
observances, did not mention Sunday as in any way sacred. If the church were already
keeping Sunday by the time of John's death, as some claim, how could he have written
his Gospel late in life, as he did, and fail to mention, at this point, that this is why Sunday
was kept? This he failed to do, and it is obvious why-Sunday was not observed by the
church when John wrote his Gospel. The silence is significant indeed.
We have mentioned that the Sacred Record in four separate places clearly
describes Paul as keeping the Sabbath. He never kept Sunday, but let us see what he did
do. While he was on his way to Jerusalem at the close of his third missionary journey,
there occurred a meeting which is sometimes put forward as an example of Sunday
keeping. The record is in Acts 20. Paul stopped at the town of Troas to meet with the
believers there, and he spent a week with them. At the conclusion of this sojourn it was
his plan to walk across country to the seaport to meet his companions who had gone
around the point of the peninsula by ship, in order that he might proceed to Jerusalem to
fulfill certain vows which he was to accomplish there. The record says that on the first
12